


Stars Don't Shine as Bright as You

by dierdele, JustinTimberlake



Category: Football RPF, Men's Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Dele is so in love, English National Team, FIFA World Cup 2018, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-07-23 12:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16158968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dierdele/pseuds/dierdele, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustinTimberlake/pseuds/JustinTimberlake
Summary: In the midst of the World Cup, Dele finds himself drawn to one star in particular. Harry Kane may have the world’s eyes on him but nobody truly sees him the way Dele does.





	1. England vs. Panama

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to the gc for helping us dig this ship from the bottom of the ocean and letting it sail freely in open waters x

The atmosphere in the changing rooms is electric.

They hadn’t just beaten Panama. They had _thrashed_ them. Annihilated them. Everyone is feeling it, from the fans to the coaches to the players; everyone who is in one way or another wearing the England crest is buzzing to have a 6-1 victory under the belt. Jesse’s incredible curve, Stones’ double goal, and Harry’s first ever world-cup hat-trick has the entire stadium soaked in euphoria.  

So, yeah. It’s safe to say everyone is in incredibly good spirits when the team step off the pitch, Dele included. He may not have been playing, but Dele is ecstatic about the win. He races into the changing rooms to congratulate his team mates and immediately finds Harry by the benches at the back, laughing with Ruben.  

Dele rolls his eyes as he steps into the conversation completely uninvited.

“Shut up,” he grins, lightly shoving Harry in the chest. “You did amazing and you know it. Captain Kane saving us again.”

“We didn’t need saving, Del,” Harry laughs, his face lighting up as he turns away from Ruben to greet Dele with a hug. It’s hot and sweaty and muddy but Dele can’t bring himself to care. He’s just so thrilled that Harry got his hat-trick and the team got their best win yet. “It’s a shame you didn’t play. You would have been on the scoresheet too.”

Dele smiles wider. Of course, he had been thinking the same thing. He would have loved to have been on the pitch with his team, leading the victory alongside Harry. And how typical of Harry – having just secured his hat-trick – to be complimenting Dele on the goals he _would_ have scored. Sometimes Dele thinks that Harry could save a hundred people from a burning building unscathed and he’d still manage to make Dele the center of attention for saving just one.

“Thanks, H.”

“I mean it Dele! You would-”

“I know you do,” Dele interrupts, his tone gentle. It fills him with warmth that Harry wants to talk about Dele’s imaginary accomplishments, but right now Dele just wants Harry to bask in his own glory for once. “But let’s talk about _you_! Even you’ve got to admit you were the star of the show tonight.”

“Couldn’t have done it without all the lads,” Harry answers immediately, gesturing to the rest of the team who are engaged in lively, animated chatter and celebrations. A few people have clapped Dele on the back but mostly everyone is too busy celebrating to notice the changing room is now overflowing with people. Dele and Harry sit on the beach and watch the room come alive, and it’s only then that Dele realises Ruben has left the conversation and moved to the other side of the room to talk to Jesse and Marcus.

“I live for these moments,” Dele says, still grinning. Harry stares straight ahead but Dele can clearly see the smile spreading across his face.

“I know you do.”

“You made this happen.”

“Not at all, it was a team effort. I’m nothing without this team,” Harry says, his gaze now fixed intently on Dele.

Dele punches him in the arm and rolls his eyes, smiling. He really doesn’t understand how so many people online can call Harry arrogant. Harry is one of the most modest people Dele has ever met. Always chalking his achievements down to the team, the manager, or the circumstance, only ever allowing himself a shred of the accolade. Dele doesn't care much about what gets said about him or the team online, but the one thing he hates is any suggestion that Harry is arrogant. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dele says, still taking in the atmosphere. “Call it what you want, but you fuckin’ smashed it, H.”

Harry smiles at him, soft and slow, then looks down at his hands in his lap. “I’m glad you think so.”

“I do.”

They watch the celebrations a little while longer, unable to peel their eyes away from the chaos of the changing room: John is sitting on Kyle’s shoulders while Kyle runs around the room, dodging stray football shirts that Eric is throwing at them; Jesse is standing on the bench, singing Three Lions at the top of his lungs with Marcus, Ruben, and Trent; Maguire and Pickford seem to have found themselves in a wrestling match in the middle of the room that everyone is now cautiously avoiding; and Gareth is just excitedly hugging everyone, not a care in the world that his team are acting like total hooligans right now.

“Thanks, Del,” Harry says eventually, almost as an afterthought, and he loops his arm around Dele’s shoulders to bring him in for another quick hug. “I should probably go shower.”

Harry stands up and stretches before peeling off his shirt and tossing it on the bench, revealing his stark tan-lines on his arms and neck. Dele smirks, laughing to himself as he looks Harry up and down. “Let me know what the plans are for dinner, yeah?” Harry says, running his hands through his hair.  

“Yeah, yeah,” Dele replies as Harry turns towards the showers. “I’ll text you.”

***

“These might be the best breadsticks I’ve ever eaten!” John says across the table, visibly ecstatic about the third basket of breadsticks that have just been placed in front of him. Kyle responds by picking one up and hitting him in the head with it until it breaks.

“Probably because this is the first breadstick you’ve ever had, you uncultured swine!”

John brushes most of the breadstick crumbs out of his hair and shoves Kyle’s shoulder, the two of them giggling like complete idiots.

“Lads, keep it civilised,” Eric scolds as he walks past the table and back to his seat.

The cozy Italian restaurant that Gareth has booked in the city really doesn’t know what’s hit it. The whole place, although rather small, has been reserved for their team dinner. There are only five people in the entire restaurant that aren’t affiliated with the team, and those are the owners and three young Russian waiters, who were looking at them with mild horror. It was supposed to be a nice, calm, relaxed sit-down meal at this family-friendly local restaurant, but now John is eating breadsticks faster than the chef can make them, crumbs still catching the light in his hair like beige dandruff, and Jesse is using a Sharpie to draw Italian moustaches on every teammate he can get his hands on.

Dele is sitting opposite John and Kyle, next to Harry, finishing up Harry’s leftover spaghetti while Harry leans back in his seat to speak to Eric and Gareth at the table behind.

“No, no, the cube is going to destroy the map,” Trent calls out to Dele from directly behind Kyle. Dele has to keep moving back and forth, leaning to the left and then the right to see past Kyle and John’s breadstick-fuelled play fight. “Loot Lake, you’ve seen it right?”

Dele nods, scooping more spaghetti into his mouth artlessly.

“You’ll get indigestion if you eat that quickly,” Harry says out of nowhere, before turning back to his conversation with Gareth.

“Well I reckon the cube will blow up Loot Lake from inside and they’ll make something completely new there,” Trent says. They’re discussing the next season of Fortnite but Dele can barely hear him because the waiters have just started playing some rather loud, rather bizarre Italian music.

“This has got to be added to the pre-match bangers!” John laughs, craning his next to look down the string of tables for a reaction.

“I love this song!” Maguire shouts from somewhere at the back of the room, making an aborted movement to get up and dance before Kieran forcibly drags him back into his seat.

Dele continues attempting to twirl spaghetti on his fork, keeping quite quiet, by his standards, just content in watching the pandemonium unfold around him. As the noise reaches an intolerable level, Pickford and Maguire mimicking the music with screeching sounds and Kyle and John escalating their fight, Gareth gets up to remind everyone that they are grown _adults_ representing their _country_ and could everyone _please_ settle down. Dele notices Harry nodding and smiles to himself at how righteous and sensible he is before he turns back to Trent.

“I think there will be a new map altogether,” Dele says to Trent around a mouthful of food.

“A new what?” Kyle asks.

“I’m not talking to you,” Dele replies, rolling his eyes and again having to lean across Harry to see Trent, pushing his chest back just slightly to make it easier for himself. Harry goes back easily, sparing him just a quick questioning glance and then turning back around when he realises that Dele doesn’t need him.

“We’ll see, we’ll see!” Trent says with a grin before turning back to Rashford and Henderson.

Kyle kicks Dele’s leg under the table to get his attention and then mimics throwing a breadstick at Harry.

“Don’t,” Dele warns, his voice deadly serious.  

“Don’t what?” Harry asks, turning back.

“Nothing,” Dele smiles, pushing his plate back towards Harry and wiping his mouth on a napkin. “Here, I finished your dinner.”

“I can see that.”

“I’m still hungry, though.”

“It’s because you’re a growing boy,” Kyle says with a wide, cheeky smile. The kind that only Kyle can get away with.

“We should probably get out of here, the waiters look ready to kill us all,” Harry says. Dele nods in agreement. He can tell that Harry had been thinking about saying it for quite some time now.

It takes a good ten minutes but eventually Gareth and Harry manage to round everyone up. Gareth pays the bill and leaves a generous tip as an apology, even having a quiet chat with the owner before they leave, thanking them profusely for such excellent service. Despite that, Dele still has a feeling this family-run restaurant might not be so accepting of foreign football teams in the future.

“There are taxis waiting outside for you when you’re ready,” Gareth announces. They all leave and a few of the players begin to climb inside the waiting taxis, Gareth following close behind with the other coaches.

Outside, the wind has picked up but the air is warm. It’s a clear night and the moon shines brightly overhead, illuminating the team who are huddled around the entrance to the restaurant. Dele finds Harry in the crowd talking to Maguire and goes to stand with them.

“I’m still hungry,” Dele says eventually, when Maguire disappears into the back of a cab with a few more of the lads, still all a little raucous and good-spirited. Harry is hovering by the taxis, beginning to walk over to the nearest one, but he suddenly stops and looks up and down the street.

“You want to go get dessert?” He asks quickly, looking round at Dele. Dele can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. They shouldn’t really be sneaking off like this without the rest of the team, especially not on a night dedicated to team bonding, but when else is he going to have the chance to eat dessert with Harry this late at night on a random street in Russia?

“Where from?”

“I know a place,” Harry smiles, his normally gelled-back hair gently blowing in the wind. Dele looks back at the crowd, most of whom have either already left or are getting ready to head back to the hotel.

“Lead the way,” he says, giddy with excitement.

After five minutes of walking, Dele begins to tug on Harry’s sleeve impatiently and points to the bright red _Chocolatte_ sign on their right.

“What about this place?”

Harry turns to look into the window of the sleek looking cafe, scrunches his face up and shakes his head.

“Del, trust me. It will be worth it when we get there, it’s so much nicer than that place. I went there for breakfast yesterday and the cakes looked _so_ good.”

Quite how Harry is suddenly an expert on Nizhny Novgorod cuisine, Dele will never know, but he goes along with it without any further complaint, despite the fact he feels like he’s been walking for hours already.

“As if the gaffer lets you have cakes for breakfast. Teacher’s pet.”

Harry laughs, elbowing Dele in the ribs.

“Oi, I didn’t have cake, actually,” he says in a serious, matter-of-fact tone, “I had a piece of fruit toast. I just said their cakes _looked_ good.”

“Interesting,” Dele says, tapping his chin mock-thoughtfully. “You don’t even bother to deny you’re the teacher’s pet.”

“Oh, shut up,” Harry says, and, much to Dele’s delight, his cheeks go a bit pink. He never could handle people telling him he was the best at anything, even if all he was the best at was being the manager’s friend.

They turn to cross the road but suddenly Harry drags Dele back with a shout. Further down the road, a single car approaches slowly. Dele looks at Harry in confusion and Harry gestures towards the car like he’s just saved Dele’s life. They could have easily made it, but Harry was just too sensible for his own good.  

When they do finally cross the road, Dele almost wants to make a joke about Harry being the ever-protective father figure, but he just about manages to refrain, instead letting out a tired sigh. Harry glances over at him and smiles slightly, shaking his head once before looping Dele’s arm with his own.

“Not much further, Dele!” he says cheerily. “Your feeble little legs will get a rest soon.”

Dele rolls his eyes and looks around, taking in the sights absentmindedly. It seemed like an okay town, he guessed. Nothing like London, and probably nothing like Moscow either, but it was quiet and dimly-lit without it seeming creepy or uninviting, and it was still warm enough outside to be walking around with just a jacket on. Still, Dele didn’t withdraw his arm from Harry’s grasp, appreciating the extra bit of warmth that was emanating from Harry: a warmth that always seemed to follow wherever Harry went.

“Can’t believe the resident OAP is calling my legs feeble,” Dele  mutters. “You just wait, Kane. I’m keeping a mental note of all these little comments of yours.”

Harry leads him around yet another corner, and Dele opens his mouth to tell Harry that he’s going back to that _Chocolatte_ place, with or without him, but then Harry stops suddenly and smiles widely at Dele, eyes bright and excited.

“Here we are!” He exclaims, gesturing to the small, unassuming cafe emitting a warm yellow glow. Dele turns to look, and he begrudgingly admits to himself that the pastries he can see from the shop window look incredible.

Harry unlinks his and Dele’s arms in order to hold the door open for him, and Dele gets a better look at the place. It’s very gentrified-Shoreditch-hole-in-the-wall, exposed brick painted white with the cafe’s name - _Mishka_ \- stencilled onto the wall in dark brown cursive. Dele is still looking around and not paying attention as they walk to the counter, causing him to bump into Harry’s back when he reaches the counter and stops.

“Hi there,” Harry says politely to the girl behind the counter, who smiles at him tightly. She’s probably not too enthusiastic about having to translate all of their menu at this time of night, Dele thinks sympathetically. That or she’s heard of the team’s antics at the restaurant earlier. “Is there anything you’d recommend?”

“People like our profiteroles,” she shrugs, and her smile becomes a little more genuine as she adds: “But for me, it is always the _medovik._ ”

Dele, always ready to try something new, grins and points at her.

“I’ll have that please! The Med-oh-vick?”

Harry nods, then asks her for a portion of the profiteroles. He turns to Dele, squeezes his shoulder and tells him to go and take the table in the corner, the one with the bear-shaped charms dangling from the ceiling. Dele grins as he excitedly makes his way over there, making sure to flick every single one of the charms on his way.

Once seated, Dele watches Harry at the counter, pulling out his wallet and flashing a winning smile at the cashier. He thanks her and drops a few hundred rubles into the tip jar. The girl leaves to prepare their desserts and Harry pulls out his phone, his face going tight with concentration as he reads something on the screen. Harry seems to sense his eyes on him, and he looks up at Dele, suddenly meeting his eyes.

Dele feels like a deer caught in headlights, and he doesn’t know why but for a split second he feels like he should dart his eyes away. Thankfully, Harry saves him from his awkwardness, and just pulls a face at him before looking back down at his phone briefly, pocketing it when their desserts are ready. He smiles gratefully at the girl and walks over to Dele, balancing a tall, multi-layered cake on a tiny plate in one hand and a teetering tower of profiteroles in the other. Dele wonders if he should go up to help, but then decides against it, too comfortable in his seat. Harry loves to be helpful anyway. He’d probably be offended if Dele took that joy from him.

Harry places Dele’s cake down in front of him first, then sits down with his own plate of profiteroles.

“Looks good, that, Del,” He says, interestedly. “What is it?”

“I’ve not even picked up my spoon yet, Harry,” he laughs. “You’re so impatient.”

Harry raises his eyebrows.

“Are we just going to ignore the fact it only took us fifteen minutes to walk here and you complained the entire time that it was taking too long?”

Dele scoffs.

“It’s so not classy that you would bring that up, H. It’s in the past. Move on.”

He scoops a sizeable spoonful of the cake up, making sure to hit all the layers, and moves it to his mouth quickly before it can fall off the spoon. He closes his eyes and moans quietly.

“What is it?” Harry asks again around a mouthful of choux pastry and cream.

“I dunno,” Dele says, eagerly lifting an even more dangerously towering spoonful of cake up to his mouth. “Tastes like honey, though.”

Harry nods, then leans over with his own spoon, until Dele bats his spoon away with an offended look.

“What are you doing?” He mumbles, mouth far too full to speak properly. “This is mine.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry flicks Dele on the forehead with the spoon before swooping down and stealing some regardless. Dele supposes he can’t be too angry. After all, Harry did pay. Still, he doesn’t have to let Harry know that he’s this reasonable. He pulls the plate to him protectively, eager to see Harry’s response.“Yeah, it’s alright.” Harry finally says, and Dele lets his spoon clatter to his plate dramatically.

“Alright?! That’s pretty rude, Harry,” he pushes his chair away from the table. “And I’ve had enough of this, to be honest. I’m sitting on a different table, with people who appreciate good food and don’t steal it off their friend’s plate.”

Harry shrugs, pretending to be unbothered for all of a minute before cracking.

“Come back, Dele,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I promise I won’t steal any of your cake.”

“And you won’t insult it?”

“And I won’t insult it.”

Dele smiles, satisfied, and tucks himself back underneath the table.

“Okay. Then you can have me back.”

Harry laughs.

“What a privilege.”

It was okay, though, that he said it so sarcastically. Because they both knew he totally meant it.

***

Harry is the one to call a taxi, Googling the number on his phone. Dele notices Harry ignoring the notification of nine missed calls. He figures it’s probably Gareth or one of the coaches calling to find out where they are, but he doesn’t want to linger on that thought so he keeps quiet. He’s in too much of a good mood to do anything that could potentially pop this happy little bubble he and Harry are floating in.

They pile into the taxi, Harry holding open the door for Dele like they’re in some _Taylor Swift_ song, and Dele rolls his eyes and clutches his chest dramatically.

“ _My hero_ ,” he says with a little grin, clambering in clumsily and crawling over the seats so that Harry can get in behind him.

The driver speaks with a heavy accent and it takes a little back and forth before he finally understands which hotel Harry is referring to, but eventually they set off down the quiet back roads.

“Here for the World Cup?” The driver asks, glancing at them in the rear view mirror. Dele and Harry both instantly look at each other, waiting to see who will answer first.

“Yeah, we are. First World Cup!” Harry says cautiously. Dele knocks his knee into Harry’s and bites back a laugh.

“English fans, crazy!” The driver laughs. “They did good against Panama, very good.”

“Yeah,” Dele agrees enthusiastically. “They did! Harry Kane especially.”

“Harry Kane!” The driver is practically squealing with delight, “The striker! Good striker! Many goals for England.”

“He’s incredible,” Dele grins, leaning forward between the two front seats, fingers gripping the cheap leather and pulling at the part where the leather has come away from the original material. “Best player on the team!”

Dele turns to look at Harry and sees him shaking his head, clearly embarrassed.

“Who are the England players? Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney?” The driver asks, scrunching his expression as he tries to think of more players. “David Beckham play for USA now?”

“Yeah he does, so does Wayne Rooney, he isn’t on the squad anymore.” Dele gently kicks Harry’s ankle, encouraging him to take part.

“Dele,” Harry says a little too loudly and abruptly. “He’s a brilliant England player.”

“Dele Alli!” The driver nods happily. “Yes, he has many goals too. Dele Alli, Harry Kane, all so young squad now.”

“Oh, Harry Kane isn’t that young,” Dele corrects, turning to smirk at Harry who fixes him with a half-hearted glare.

“I mean, he’s only 25,” Harry adds quickly. “That’s pretty young.”

The taxi driver nods and hums in agreement. He looks like he’s searching for something to say, wanting the conversation to last longer. They were clearly his most interesting customers of the night.

“I hear he’s a good man.”

Dele smiles, eyeing a lightly blushing Harry, letting his smile grow softer when Harry goes to say something then promptly shuts his mouth, eyes cast downward. Dele decides to respond for him.

“He’s alright.”

Harry looks up again, staring at Dele for a few seconds before smiling back at him. The driver glances back at them through his rear-view mirror, looking curiously between the pair, clearly wanting an expansion on that answer. He pulls up outside of their hotel, looking back at them regretfully after he checks his meter.

“It is two-thousand, please.”

Harry reaches for his wallet immediately, and Dele feels a little guilty about it for a split-second. He doesn’t know why he always lets Harry pay for him, but it’s just the way it always seems to go. It’s not as if he minds paying, he’s pretty comfortable, money-wise, but whenever he’s offered in the past, Harry just turns him down with a laugh. So now Dele just doesn’t bother.

Harry pulls out a five-thousand-ruble bill, handing it over to the driver, who starts fiddling around his glove box for change.

“Keep the change, mate. Have a good night.”

Their driver looks shocked, but grins widely, clapping his hands together.

“Thank you sirs! Have a great time here in Russia! I hope your England win the football!”

Dele flashes their driver a smile, laughing despite himself. He sure hopes so, too.

“Thanks for the ride,” Dele says happily, stumbling as he gets out of the taxi. Harry holds out an arm to steady him, which he grasps briefly. He turns around again to the taxi, waving. “Goodnight!” He lets the door shut behind him with a slam, and turns back around to Harry. Harry is waiting patiently for Dele, and when Dele realises he is still grasping Harry’s forearm he lets it drop quickly. They start walking up to the entrance of the hotel, side by side, their arms brushing each other with every other step.

As they are approaching the brightly lit hotel doors, Harry’s phone starts buzzing in his hand again. Harry bites his lip and locks the screen again, ending the call, but Dele sees it for certain this time: _Gareth Southgate (12 Missed Calls, 10 Unread Messages)._ Dele suddenly realises that Harry must be in a lot of trouble. Probably for going missing after the team dinner, which is fair enough, but he just doesn’t understand why he isn’t getting the same treatment. _Unless_ , he thinks softly, _maybe Harry is taking the fall for you_. The thought makes him want to give Harry a hug, but he knows instinctively that Harry would rather Dele pretend he didn’t know. He’d rather just take the hit for Dele without Dele even knowing about it.

“Thanks for tonight, H,” he says instead, and Harry looks at him gratefully.

“Don’t need to thank me, Del. It’s always nice hanging out with you.”

Harry steps into the revolving door and Dele squeezes in with him childishly, giggling when Harry elbows him in the ribs. When they get inside, Dele goes to the lift, assuming Harry is coming too, but then he spots Harry standing still, looking over at the bar warily. He follows Harry’s line of eyesight and just about sees Gareth. He is facing away from them, but it is unmistakably him, still clad in his ever-famous waistcoat. Dele quickly looks back at Harry, trying to make out like he hadn’t noticed.

“H, you coming up? Your room is on my floor, right?”

“Uh, actually Del, I might just get a quick drink before I come up.” He scratches the back of his neck. “But - ah, feel free to go up. I won’t be long following you anyway. So, you know, I wouldn’t bother waiting around.”

Dele looks at him seriously.

“Are you sure?”

Harry nods.

“Yeah, Del. Go to sleep.”

Dele relents then, pulling Harry in for a tight hug.

“Thanks, Harry,” he murmurs. “You’re such a good mate.”

Harry squeezes him back then lets him go, waving him off.

“You too. Goodnight, Dele.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

He walks to the lift, and as he waits for it to arrive, watches out of the corner of his eye as Harry steels himself to go and get a bollocking from the gaffer. In the scheme of things, it would be fine. Harry would be golden boy again within a matter of days, maybe hours if their training sessions went well, but it still felt so significant to Dele that Harry would take the hit for him.

He really was the best mate he could ever have asked for.


	2. England vs. Belgium

Kaliningrad Stadium is a sleek, contemporary building just outside of the city centre. Dele likes Kaliningrad, likes how clean and modern and neat it is. Leafy parks and Soviet monuments dot the city, all locked away behind the remaining Kaliningrad gates. While the coach crawls through the traffic towards the stadium, Dele entertains himself with people watching. He waves at a group of kids who jump up and down in excitement when they see the England bus. They can’t see him, of course, but he grins at them anyway. 

The stadium is nice, too. It’s big and airy and Dele thinks it would be a great place to play hide and seek. The white walls still smell of fresh paint and there isn’t a single speck of dust to be seen.  

Dele and Harry are sitting at the back of a sparsely-furnished media room, sharing a bag of sweet popcorn that Harry bought from a vending machine when Gareth wasn’t looking. Some of the players are being filmed by the media team for England’s Instagram Live, but Dele and Harry have ducked out of it on the basis that they aren’t even in the starting eleven. 

Ruben turns to look at them and shakes his head when Dele throws popcorn in the air before catching it in his open mouth. Harry lightly nudges him in the ribs. 

“You know if you choke, Gareth will kill me right?”

Dele throws another, catches it again. “I’m so good at this,” he says proudly as he swallows more popcorn and reaches for another from the bag Harry is holding. He’s really just showing off at this point. 

“Yes,” Harry agrees. “You are good at this. But you’re also good at football, and-” 

Dele throws the popcorn too high and he miscalculates the trajectory. It hits his cheek before tumbling to the floor. Dele can feel the devastation showing on his face.  

“Better at football, I’d say,” Harry adds. Dele fixes him with an unimpressed glare. 

“On in fifteen!” A female voice calls out from some newly-fitted doorway. The team stop their filming and the stadium staff begin ushering them all out of the room for final preparations.

“Let’s do this!” Harry says cheerfully as he stands up. Dele follows in pursuit, hot on his heels as they retrace their steps around the stadium until they’re back in the tunnel. They quickly wish everyone luck before being led to the dugout.

Dele takes a seat at the back of the subs bench, scooting over so Harry can sit next to him. Dele has noticed that Harry is in exceptionally high spirits today and he thinks it might have something to do with him being able to watch his team play from the dugout. As the star player, Harry is usually the one leading the team out onto the pitch. Now, though, he seems more than happy watching it happen from the sidelines. 

“Listen to the crowd,” Harry says with a grin. He excitedly knocks his knee against Dele’s when the England players line up on the pitch ready for the national anthem. “I love listening to the crowd here.” 

Dele is overcome with a sudden urge to kiss Harry. The pure joy that radiates off of Harry’s face as the national anthem echoes around the stadium makes Dele feel warm and giddy inside. The stadium smells of earthy grass and the crowd is singing along with them, proud of their national team. It’s in this moment that Dele realises just how much he lives for football, for this sport and for this team. He loves it with his entire heart, probably more than he will ever love anything else. And so does Harry, judging by his expression as the match kicks off. It’s a raw, competitive love that only a footballer can understand. It’s something that binds them together. 

“Mousa looks worried,” Harry laughs, pointing out Mousa Dembele on the pitch. 

“Yeah. This will be a good match,” Dele replies with his signature grin. He lounges back in his plastic chair and kicks his feet up onto the empty seat in front.

It isn’t, in fact, a good match. They lose 1-0 but the team are fully aware that a loss will help them avoid Brazil in the quarter finals, so at the very least it feels like a tactical loss. 

Back in the dressing room, Dele is running around dishing out high fives. He jumps on John Stones’ back who carries him around the room. They begin to pick up some pace until Gareth steps in and John immediately drops Dele back to his feet. 

“Not the result we wanted, but the result we needed,” Gareth says loudly, his tone light-hearted and unfazed. He claps Eric on the back and smiles at his team. “Good performance tonight, but certainly some lessons to be learned. We’ll be leaving in thirty minutes and I want everyone to get a decent sleep tonight. Training starts bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Dele catches Harry’s eye across the room and they exchange sympathetic looks. Dele hates early training sessions.

\--

Back at the hotel, Dele catches thirty minutes for a few rounds of Fortnite. He sets his portable PS4 up on the desk and settles into an armchair. He’s half way through his fourth match when his phone lights up with a text message from Harry. Dele glances between his phone and the game. After a few seconds, he relents and grabs his phone. 

The controller he’s holding falls to the floor and Dele practically darts out of his room, sparing himself just enough time to grab his key card on the way out. 

The text reads:  _ 999: Come to the lounge ASAP - Harry,  _ and so Dele is in a hurry as he bounds down the stairs two at a time. Harry very rarely deems any situation 999-worthy, so Dele figures this must be serious. 

Dele jogs to the hotel’s lounge space that has been rented out privately for the team, passing Gareth, who looks at him oddly but tells him to “keep up the good work!” and a large, long window that looks out into the dark, looming cityscape of Kaliningrad. When he finally reaches the lounge, he throws open the door, panting just slightly from the exertion.

“H, what’s up? You okay?” 

The entire team are in there, half of them milling around the sofas and some stragglers sitting on the long dining table. All of them, though, turn to him as he comes in and start moaning in unison.

“God, Harry, you didn’t have to bring Dele into this -”

“Did you  _ really _ just make Dele run down here to back you up?”

“Del, mate, you’re so under the thumb it’s unbelievable...” 

Dele cuts them off with a shushing gesture, eyeing Harry who is suspiciously quiet and looking, of all things, a bit smug, crossing his arms with a small smile.

“What’s going on?” He demands. “Harry?”

Harry ducks his head sheepishly, but he quickly recovers, grinning a little cheekily up at Dele as he answers.

“The lads say it isn’t my pick for movie night, but you know it is, right Del?”

“Fucking…” Dele stares at him, then shakes his head. “Yeah, it is. Is that really all you wanted?”

Harry carries on grinning at him.

“Nah, of course not, Dele. I just wanted to see you.”

Pickford gags loudly, and the rest of the team groan. John punches Harry’s arm lightly, muttering something that Dele can’t hear. Dele, on the other hand, rolls his eyes with a smile. He perches on the nearest armrest, which just so happens to be on the sofa adjacent to Harry. 

“What’s the pick then?” he asks curiously, wondering why everyone is so mad about it. 

Harry tosses the DVD at him and it lands in his lap, face up:  _ The Shawshank Redemption. _ It takes all of Dele’s willpower not to pull a face. His style was more  _ 21 Jump Street  _ or  _ Shrek 2  _ than  _ Shawshank _ , but he didn’t want to pounce on Harry and add to the bad vibes, especially after Harry had called him down so desperately. Also, he had never actually watched the movie, so he doesn’t want to prejudge it  _ too _ hard. 

“It’s a classic, Dele.”

“Mate, it’s so fucking boring,” Henderson argues, exasperated. “Why are you like fifty-eight years old?”

Harry ignores him and looks up at Dele through his eyelashes, eyes wide and pleading.

“You wanna watch it with me?”

It’s actually a little embarrassing, Dele thinks, that Harry just had to send him one text and he knew that Dele would come running down to back him up. Still, though, Dele thinks about it for all of ten seconds before he’s nodding. 

“Sure, why not?”

Harry grins.

“Told you guys Dele would be on my side.”

“God.” Pickford groans. “You two go fuck off somewhere and watch that load of shite then, if you want to. I’m not having any part of it.”

Harry jumps up out of his seat and tugs Dele up by the arm.

“You lot aren’t getting any of the snacks I bought then. Come on, Del. You can have them all.”

Suddenly, Dele is much more enthusiastic. He was already pretty psyched before that just to be spending time with Harry. Now that there were unlimited snacks, though, he positively ran after him, laughing wildly as the squad grumbled. 

“You losers!” he yelled, “Eat my dust.”

He just about hears Eric yell that that doesn’t make any sense, but he doesn’t care. He’s just too excited. 

\--

Dele jumps onto Harry’s bed, immediately making grabby hands for the bag of snacks Harry is carrying. Harry laughs and tosses the big bag of popcorn and the little sharing pack of brownie bites at him. He keeps a couple of things in the bag though, and Dele is so desperately trying to see what else is in there that he only narrowly manages to catch the brownie bites, and is a little stunned when the popcorn hits him right in the face. 

Thankfully, Harry doesn’t seem to notice, as he is busy hooking up the HDMI cord to the TV screen on the wall. Dele is a little outraged as he’s pretty sure his room isn’t this fancy, but then he might just be mistaken. He is, as Harry is always reminding him, chronically unobservant. Not that Dele is too sure what that means. 

“So what’s it about then? The film?” Dele asks around a mouthful of popcorn. 

Harry looks round at him and tuts.

“Can’t you even wait til the movie has started before you eat all of the popcorn?”

“Hey,” Dele tosses another few pieces in his mouth. “You’re the one who said I could have all of it. It’s  _ mine. _ ”

Harry rolls his eyes and turns back around, fiddling with his laptop for a few minutes before he turns round triumphantly. 

“Got it! You’re gonna love it, Del.” 

Dele sort of doubts that, but it’s fine. Before Harry had texted him he was only sat around playing Fortnite. He was actually starting to consider picking up that book that Davies had forced upon him, just for something new to do, so he was beyond thankful that he was getting to watch a movie instead. He laughs when Harry turns the lights down with a dimmer switch.

“Mood lighting. I love it.”

“Well, Dele, some things in life you just have to take seriously. Movie nights are one of them.” 

“You take everything seriously.”

Harry shrugs and climbs into his bed, getting under the covers. Dele looks at him and shivers, realising it’s actually pretty cold. 

“Yeah, yeah. You know, you can get in the covers too.” 

Dele smiles gratefully, and places the open bag of popcorn very carefully down next to him before he shuffles up and drags the blanket over him. As soon as he is nice and warm, he reaches for the popcorn again, tutting when he sees Harry open the brownie bites. He pokes his stomach.

“Watch that waistline, H. Southgate won’t be happy when his golden boy starts losing that fine athletic shape.”

Dele grabs the bag of popcorn, opens his mouth and shakes the bag until he literally can’t fit any more into his mouth. 

Harry looks at him, a little disgusted, and pops a brownie into his mouth delicately.

“Not sure the gaffer cares about my figure much, Del.” 

Dele doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He turns his attention to the TV, and watches as some old white guy starts talking to Morgan Freeman.

“Hey, he’s in  _ Bruce Almighty _ ! He’s God!” 

Harry looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but tears his eyes away from the screen as he smiles over at Dele.

“You already know all the classics, don’t you Dele?” 

Dele smiles back, jokingly smug as he crosses his arms and nods. 

The pair fall into a comfortable silence, Harry clearly enraptured by the film. Dele tries to keep watching, too, but he’s just not following the story at all. He hates to say it, but the team were right. It  _ is _ boring. It doesn’t help, though, that twenty minutes into the movie, Dele starts to realise how tired he is, sinking slowly lower down onto the pillows. He glances back at the movie for a couple of seconds, understands none of it, and then decides to look up at Harry and watch his reactions instead. 

Harry looks so serious. His brow is furrowed and his lips are tightly pressed together in a narrow line. It’s not an expression that Dele sees often from Harry, at least not when they’re alone. He’s known for his serious demeanour on and off the pitch, but when he and Dele were hanging out he was normally smiley and silly. Now, though, he’s just totally entranced by the film, lips parting in a gasp when something shocking happens on-screen, even though Dele knows Harry must have watched this film dozens of times already. 

Dele watches Harry for a little longer, feeling his eyes go droopy and yawning softly. 

Harry looks over at him, and he smiles softly when he notices Dele’s sleepy eyes watching him. He pulls on the blanket that was tucked underneath the mattress so that Dele can lift the covers up to his chin. Dele smiles back up at him, grateful, and wriggles even further down into the bed, barely even able to see the screen anymore. He carries on looking at Harry, though, feeling a little more sleepy and soft and warm everytime Harry glances back at him or pets his head absentmindedly. He feels a little guilty that he’s not really watching the film, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind. Harry pets his hair again, and he sighs happily, finally closing his eyes.

\--

He’s warm. He’s warm and he’s comfortable, and he’s holding on to something soft, and he snuggles further into it even as something jostles his shoulder. 

“Dele,” he hears someone whisper. 

He whines. He doesn’t want to get up. He’s just too damn comfortable, and he’s still not fully awake or aware of his surroundings, cuddling up to the warm mass more insistently. He whines louder when something jostles him again, harder this time.

“What?” 

“Dele,” the voice says again,“You fell asleep.”

Dele blinks his eyes open and lets them focus on where he is. He looks around, disoriented, and realises with a start that the warm thing he’d been holding onto like a koala bear was Harry. 

“Sorry,” he says with a small yawn, tearing himself away from Harry with a measure of regret. He feels colder within seconds, and frowns at the loss of Harry’s body heat. He sits up. “I was meant to watch the movie with you.”

“It’s okay,” Harry says with a smile. “It was just nice to have some company.”

Dele smiles back at him sleepily, then groans as he moves to get out of Harry’s bed. When he gets out of the covers, he shivers.

“How are you sat there with your t-shirt on? It’s so cold.”

Harry laughs. “You’re so cold-blooded it’s unbelievable. You're like a lizard.” 

Harry swings himself out of bed, too, and pulls on his slippers.

“Where are you going?” Dele demands, as he stands up and stretches, before he helplessly falls back down and sits on the bed again.

Harry gives him a disbelieving look and bends down to pick up his jumper, tossing it at Dele.

“I’m walking you back to your room.”

Dele pulls on Harry’s big Patriots sweatshirt - fucking loser - and smiles. It smells like Harry - vanilla and lavender and fresh linen. He takes Harry’s outstretched hand, who then pulls him up to his feet. 

Even when he’s fully upright, he doesn’t let go of Harry’s arm, staying close to his side and letting Harry sort of drag him down the hallway. The thing is, he’s sure Harry would’ve let him stay in his bed if he’d have asked. But something had stopped him from asking. He wasn’t sure what, but he just felt a little weird about asking him, even though he knows that’s ridiculous. 

Harry doesn’t say anything as they walk to Dele’s room, and they trudge along in a comfortable silence, Dele feeling his eyes already going droopy with every step they take. 

When they finally reach Dele’s door, he doesn’t even notice, and Harry has to tug on his arm so that he stops walking.

“Oh,” he says blearily, pulling his wallet out and trying to find the keycard. “Thanks.”

Harry looks at him for a second, then gently takes the wallet out of Dele’s hands, finding the card immediately and unlocking his door for him. He opens the door, and Dele stumbles in, letting go of Harry’s arm and just immediately throwing himself onto the bed.

Harry tuts, closes the curtains and comes back to look at Dele.

“You alright, then?”

Dele glances back at him, then sits back up with some effort. 

“Come here,” Dele says pathetically, not wanting to actually stand up.

Harry goes over to him, and Dele leans up and hugs him tightly.

“Thanks for taking care of me, Harry.”

Harry laughs, a little surprised puff of air, and tells him he always will, before he gives Dele one last squeeze and then lets himself out of the room, wishing Dele goodnight and sweet dreams.

Dele can’t stop smiling, and he settles back into bed, the warm feeling that has been in his chest all night growing so much it seems fit to burst. He has no idea why he keeps feeling so happy every time he and Harry hang out, but he doesn’t really want to think too deeply about it. He’s just glad he has a best friend that would tuck him in at night. 

He unbuttons his jeans and takes them off, but he keeps the Patriots sweater on, hugging it around himself. If he pulls the neckline of it up so that he’s surrounded by the comforting smell of Harry as he sleeps, well, that’s something he doesn’t want to think about. 


	3. England vs. Columbia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading and for all your lovely comments! They're really inspiring us to keep writing and keep putting out new content. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter x

What starts out as an energetic, optimistic game quickly becomes one the longest, most tiresome 90 minutes of Dele’s life. He likes to think he’s had a fair amount of match experience, despite his age, but he’s never experienced  _ anything  _ like this. 

Considering England are 1-0 up, it feels like Colombia are absolutely hammering them.

Dele has been pushed, shoved, tripped, barged into, and thrown to the ground more times that he can count, and it’s really starting to take a toll on him. He can feel himself losing focus on the ball, losing pace, losing his position on the pitch. His surroundings are becoming a blur because he’s just so tired from trying to keep himself upright _._

The ref blows his whistle and the game comes to a halt. With a quick glance down the pitch, Dele sees that the clock is at 80 minutes. He feels a brief sense of relief that he only has to last another ten minutes of this.

Somewhere across the pitch, a Colombian player is being booked for another foul. Dele takes a moment to wipe the sweat off his face and catch his breath. 

Harry suddenly runs up behind him, panting. “You okay?” He asks. There’s mud on his knees, his elbows, and up the side of his face. Dele has a sudden urge to reach out and wipe it off his cheek. 

“Yeah, good,” he replies, nodding. Harry puts his hand on the small of Dele’s back, gives it a quick rub, and then sets off back to his position. Dele watches him bounce across the pitch and marvels at his seemingly unlimited energy. Where he gets it from, Dele will never know.  

Maguire argues with the ref for a while and Dele just stands and watches, using the time to recover some energy. As he’s watching John kick up some grass, it suddenly occurs to him that Harry actually just ran across the pitch simply to check that Dele was okay. They’re 80 minutes into one of their most brutal games, everyone is completely exhausted, and yet Harry Kane, the ever loving, ever caring, ever wonderful- 

Dele’s thoughts are stopped in their tracks when the ball goes back into play. Magure is yelling something at Stones and suddenly the ball is flying up the midfield.

The Colombian players become more aggressive with each passing minute and when Dele tries to sneak around the player that is marking him, he gets elbowed in the chest and winded. Of course, it goes completely unnoticed by the ref, even though Harry is furiously screaming at him across the pitch and trying to get the game stopped.  

_ Focus,  _ Dele reminds himself. He signals to Harry that he’s okay, takes a few deep breaths, and slows his running to regain a sense of his surroundings. Despite the burning in his lungs, Dele is determined to take possession of the ball. He can see it trailing back up the midfield, coming right at him, and if he just cuts in behind this defender, he thinks he can-

It comes out of nowhere. A blur of yellow and then a sudden, unexpected thump. Dele’s only thought is that he’s just ran into a brick wall. It’s the only explanation for the flash of dull pain that is sending shockwaves through his entire body. As he begins to lose contact with his senses, he feels himself tumble to the floor. The last thing he sees is the ground racing towards him, and then nothing.

\--

There’s just light. Light and shadows. The light comes and goes in waves. It’s there and then it isn’t. Dele doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but he knows the light burns. He prefers the shadows. The shadows are quieter and more peaceful.  

“Del.. an… you… m.. n.. me... Dele?” 

The noises are far away, barely a whisper, and Dele can’t make any sense of them. They echo for a while, bouncing off the nothingness that surrounds him. He can think, can feel, but can’t react. He knows he has a body, but right now he’s floating somewhere just outside of it. Swimming, maybe. 

“...m here,” 

“He con...ss’d,” 

“Del…” 

“He… t... uck.. I ..f ..all,” 

The shadows begin to move in front of him, forming shapes. Dele tries to swim towards them but the shadows move too quickly. More light, then nothing but bright, burning, screaming light. Then more shadows and noises that Dele doesn’t understand. He stops trying to swim and curls up instead. He’s frightened. There’s something in the water with him.  

“Am… er, Del, ..am.. ai.. ite.. ‘ere, Del.” 

Del. That’s him. And the voice, he knows the voice. That’s Harry. 

“Ite.. ‘ere,” 

Dele pushes harder this time to swim to the surface. Whatever he’s swimming in is cold,  _ too cold.  _ It’s dragging him down.

Another blinding light, and then pain. Pain so sharp he feels like he’s being sliced open. The water he’s swimming in has become electrocuted. It’s killing him. 

“Dele… t’s Ha..y.” 

Something reaches out through the electrictrified water and grabs his hand. Dele holds onto it tightly, desperate for it to take him away from this pain. It begins to slowly pull him towards the surface. He’s going to be saved.  

“Can ..ou he.. me?”  

He’s so close to the surface now. He can see the ripples and the reflection of sunlight. There’s warmth up there, and safety. 

“I’m here.”

He breaks through, alive. He’s alive. 

“Dele?” 

Dele blinks, adjusts to the swarm of shadows and lights that are now beginning to morph themselves into human figures. 

There’s noise and pain and his throat is dry. He’s in a bed, not water. There’s tingling and then numbness. 

Harry. There’s Harry. He’s mouthing things at Dele. It takes all the energy he has but Dele turns his head and follows the shapes Harry is making with his mouth, lets the noise in for just long enough that he can make some meaning of it. 

“Can you hear me?” 

Dele nods and then immediately regrets it. The movement sends electric shocks behind his eyes and for a moment he’s swimming again.

“I’m here,” Harry says. He takes Dele’s hand and Dele is back again. The electric shocks begin to subside. Harry is rubbing the skin on the back of Dele’s hand with his thumb. It feels nice. It’s calming him down. 

It takes a few minutes for Dele to fully come around. His surroundings are blurry and he doesn’t know what happened or where he is or why his head feels like it’s made of concrete. He just knows that Harry is here and Harry is someone he trusts. So he keeps looking to Harry, listens to Harry’s soothing voice, lets Harry hold his hand while the doctor shines more burning lights into Dele’s eyes. 

With every passing minute, Dele begins to make sense of things. He’s in medical, there’s a doctor checking him over, and he’s suffered a heavy concussion.

“I was on the pitch,” Dele says slowly. He remembers the blur of yellow and then falling to the floor. Harry nods. 

“Yeah, you were.” 

“I got knocked out?” Dele turns his head ever so slightly, fixing Harry with a questioning gaze. Harry nods again, and his expression changes to something unfamiliar. Dele thinks it might be anger, but he can’t be too sure; things are still a little hazy. 

“Yeah.” 

“How long was I out?” 

“Two minutes and 35 seconds.” Harry continues stroking the skin on the back of Dele’s hand. “Apparently you were conscious but you took a long time to come around.” 

“We won?” 

“We won.” 

“Did you score?” 

“It went to penalties.” 

“Did you score?”

“I scored.”

Dele tries not to let it show on his face how gutted he is that he wasn’t there. He’s conjuring up images of Harry in front of the goal, stepping up to take the first penalty. It fills him with an aching sadness.

“You were there in spirit,” Harry says, smiling softly at him. Dele squeezes his hand. 

The door to the medical room opens and Trippier pops his head inside, nodding a quick hello at them both. “Hope you’re feeling better, Dele,” he says briskly. “H, we’ve got to go mate.”

“I’m staying with Del,” Harry replies, firmly but polite.

“Yeah, John said you’d say that.” Kieran laughs a little, apprehensive and still hovering in the doorway. Dele tries to follow the conversation but they’re talking too fast and his head is beginning to swim again. “But we’ve got to go. Dele is in good hands. Beasley will bring him back to the hotel later on.”

“Why can’t I stay?”

“I don’t know, mate. Just passing on the message. Gareth said you need to come back with us.” 

Dele pictures Harry on the pitch, taking the penalties. He scores each and every one of them, over and over again. Dele is standing on the pitch behind him, just watching. It’s his favourite thing to do. He could spend hours just watching Harry Kane score goals. 

“Well what if I-”

“Harry,” Kieran interrupts. “He’s in good hands. Beasley will bring him back but Gareth said he needs to rest for a bit first.” 

Dele stares up at Harry, watching the way his mouth twists around angry vowels. He has no idea what they’re arguing about but it’s so rare for Harry to get angry that Dele feels like he almost doesn’t know this person.

He squeezes Harry’s hand.  _ Come back to me _ , he thinks,  _ I’m right here.  _

Harry glances down at Dele for a moment, as if reading his thoughts. They lock eyes for just a second before Dele feels himself slipping away. His focus on Harry becomes gauzy. 

Harry sighs, somewhat defeated. “You need to rest.”

“Mm?” Dele hums, but he doesn’t really know what Harry just said. He’s sinking back into the water. This time it’s warm and comforting. Harry is still scoring goals, turning to Dele after each one and beaming at him.  _ He’s pure joy.  _

“Get some sleep. I’ll see you at the hotel, okay?” 

Harry runs across the pitch to him and they throw their arms around each other. Dele sweeps Harry off his feet and lifts him into the air, letting the sunlight pour over them. It all happens in slow motion and Dele knows it isn’t real but he doesn’t care. They’re just so happy. 

Harry squeezes Dele’s hand one last time. Dele wants to squeeze back but he’s too far away now. His eyes slip shut and everything goes dark and very, very quiet. 

\--

Dele stumbles out of the car, and Beasley hurries out, tries to steady him. 

“Take it easy, Dele.”

He nods slowly and tries to focus on his steps. He doesn’t feel dizzy, but he doesn’t feel completely steady on his feet either. Feels like his balance is just a bit off. He thinks about that for a second. Didn’t balance have something to do with ears? He stops walking and tugs at his earlobes, wondering if that will help. He takes another step forward to test the water, and almost sways to the side. Ok, it didn’t work, he thinks sadly. 

Beasley is still walking beside him, watching him cautiously, but Dele pays him little to no attention, focusing on walking so intently that he stops with a start when he hits the glass door with his slightly outstretched arm.

He steps back for a second, watching the revolving glass door with trepidation, wondering when he should make the plunge and step inside. It’s spinning so fast, Dele feels like it’s a blur, and he worries that he won’t be able to find his way out again once he gets in. 

He sees Beasley furrow his eyebrows at him and knows that if he carries on acting like this he might be marched back to medical as soon as he gets in the building, so he takes a deep breath and steps inside. 

It takes all of his concentration to shuffle along with the glass door and to stumble out of the doorway in a rush when he notices the shiny wooden desk in the lobby. He looks around. He recognises the red plush sofa to his right and the oversized clock on the wall. He breathes a sigh of relief. He got in.

Beasley clears his throat and Dele is so worried that he might be about to drag him to medical that he looks wildly around, panicking, his heart leaping out of his chest when he sees Tripps and Maguire standing off to the side. 

He runs over to them, stopping when he gets to them abruptly and feeling a little light-headed.

They look over at him and start talking. They talk quickly and loudly and one of them gives Dele a hug, one of them shaking his shoulder. He can’t really concentrate on what they are saying, and he just grins up at them cluelessly. 

“Hi guys!” 

He says, loudly. Too loudly.

They look at him oddly, say an uncertain hello back, then they look over at Beasley.

“Is it alright if we take him up to Stonesy’s room?”

Beasley frowns.

“Is it a party?”

“Of course not,” Kieran says smoothly. “We’re just hanging out and playing games. We’re not stupid.”

Beasley considers him for a second, then nods. 

“As long as you boys take care of him.”

Kieran nods. 

“Me and Harry will take good care of him.” 

Dele frowns when Maguire nods and agrees, saying “we will.” He had forgotten for a brief second that Maguire was also called Harry, and he is hit suddenly with thoughts about the other Harry. His Harry. He wonders if Harry is upstairs. He hopes that he is. He misses him.

“Where’s Harry?”

He blinks, startled. He didn’t realise the words were coming out of his mouth before he heard them.

Both of them smile at him, more gently than they’ve ever done in their lives. Dele doesn’t know why they’re looking at him like he’s so small.

“He’s upstairs. Do you want to come up with us?”

Dele nods, quickly, his head swimming with the movement, and both of them take him by his arms. 

“Ok, Delboy. Let’s go and see Harry.” 

They guide him up the stairs slowly and carefully and Dele starts to feel a little more steady with every step. He thinks the car ride might have messed with him a little bit, as he is feeling much better after being on steady ground for a while. 

Dele feels like an invalid when they grip his arms tightly and help him up the top step.

“I’m okay,” he says to them indignantly, but he doesn’t trust himself fully so doesn’t bother to shrug them off. Kieran gives him a knowing look and loosens his grip on him as he tugs Dele along to the door.

Maguire leads Dele into the room and gives him a little pat on the back when he finally releases him. 

“Look who we found!” 

Dele feels everyone’s eyes on him. He’s a bit overwhelmed when everyone explodes into a cacophony of noise, everyone surrounding him and smiling and shouting at him. Kieran nudges Pickford away, who’s aggressively asking him how he’s feeling, and nudges Dele, pointing to his right.

Harry is standing right next to him, putting a hand on his arm and asking him something, but Dele doesn’t pay attention. He just smiles up at him, happy to see him.

“Are you alright, Del?”

He hears Harry ask again, and he nods, being careful not to do it too quickly again and get a headrush.

“I’m hungry.”

Harry laughs. 

“You always are,” he says, then he rubs small circles into Dele’s forearm with his thumb, before he leads him over to John. “John, do you have any food in here for Del?”

John nods and smiles.

“Yeah, ‘course. You doing alright, Dele?”

Dele nods again. He feels like he’s nodding too much today. He feels like the nodding dog. From the car adverts. He nods again, and laughs to himself. Harry and John look at him curiously, and turn back to each other with an indecipherable look. 

John reaches into the top drawer next to him and pulls out a packet of shortbread biscuits. Normally, he’s very protective of them, saying he only gets one proper treat a month and his mum’s shortbread is his one vice. Dele knows this very well. He also knows this means that John really cares about him, and upon this realisation, Dele grins widely up at him. 

“You love me, John.”

John laughs. He glances at Harry, giving him another look that Dele can’t figure out, then looks back at Dele.

“Sure do, Dele. Hope you start feeling better.”

Harry picks up the biscuits, thanks John, and starts to lead Dele over to the window-seat. Dele goes easily, excited to have some of the shortbread, and sits down very carefully on the cushioned seat, Harry helping him down before he sits down on the other side of the little bench. 

Dele frowns at the distance between them. It feels like Harry is avoiding him. Like Harry is trying to keep his distance. Dele is surprised by the hurt that suddenly settles in his stomach. 

“You’re too far away,” he says sadly. “I can’t feel your warm.” 

Harry raises an eyebrow. “My warm?” he asks, but he shuffles closer regardless.

“Yeah,” Dele answers, and he bumps into Harry’s side, grinning up at him like an idiot now that he knows Harry isn’t avoiding him. “Now I can. You’re always warm. It’s nice,” he hums, and he looks at Harry. There is a lamp behind them illuminating softly and it’s turning strands of Harry’s hair golden.

“It’s like you’re the sun,” Dele mumbles, mostly to himself. 

He carries on admiring the way Harry looks under the lamplight, and watches as Harry’s face goes a little pink, watches as he runs his fingers through those golden strands of hair. Watches as he says “thanks” and laughs. Watches Harry start to look at him with a little uncertainty, and watches as he pulls a piece of shortbread out of the tin.

“You’re still a bit out of it, aren’t you, Del?”

Dele shrugs and gratefully leans forward to bite the biscuit that Harry holds out to him. He doesn’t even consider holding it himself. Doesn’t think anything of it as he continues eating out of Harry’s hand. When he’s on his last bite, Harry chucks it into his mouth with a little panicked movement. Dele looks up at him, confused.

“Why did you throw it? I wouldn’t have bit you.” He frowns, offended. “I would never bite you.”

“I know, Dele,” Harry laughs awkwardly. “I’m sorry.”

Dele shrugs again.

“It’s okay.”

He looks down at his knees for a second, then looks back up when Harry loops his arm around him. He sighs, and snuggles closer gratefully.

His head hurts a bit less now.

\--

Only one day passes where Dele isn’t allowed to train with the team, and Kyle and John still let him kick a ball around with them in secret anyway, cornering him after lunch, giggling and whispering, and emphasising how he’s “not allowed to tell Harry, he’ll fuckin’ murder us! _ ” _

And, yeah, Dele believes them, since Harry is a bit of a nightmare all day long. He will just not stop fussing over him. Every spare minute that he gets, he is worriedly checking up on him, clucking like a mother hen. The only reason Dele manages to sneak off with the City lads is because Harry and Gareth walk away to have their daily tactical talk just as Kyle and John rush over. 

There actually comes a point, later, where Dele is forced to kick Harry out of his room, when Harry won’t stop abandoning their game of Fortnite to check his head whenever Dele so much as gasps at something on-screen. 

Harry grumbles as he leaves, and continues texting Dele periodically, threatening him with snack deprivation and telling him he will come to Dele’s room and take his Patriots sweater back unless he takes his ibuprofen at exactly five o’clock, and sends a video to prove it. Dele finds himself pretty immediately sending Harry a Snapchat of him taking it, wearing the jumper, and rolling his eyes. Harry snaps back a picture of himself sticking his thumbs up with the caption “good boy” along with a little dog emoji. Dele laughs, stretching Harry’s sleeves further down his arms and wondering if he should cut thumb holes into them. Harry is  _ never _ getting this jumper back. 

The day after, Dele is invited back to training with the entire team, having made a full recovery, thanks to the help of the medical team, Gareth, and, of course, Harry. 

The team laugh at him a bit when he first jogs out onto the pitch, ribbing him lightly for how funny he was acting when he was concussed. Dele doesn’t really mind. He doesn’t remember much, so it doesn’t bother him. The only real vivid memory he has is eating something out of Harry’s hand, and he thinks that could’ve been a dream anyway, since in his head he was eating a handful of blue mushrooms. 

Tripps jogs over to him.

“Where’s Harry?” he asks him, grinning. 

Dele looks at him, a little nonplussed, then points over to Harry, who’s stretching with Lingard and Rashford. 

Kieran shakes his head, still smiling, and jogs past him. 

Dele feels like he’s missed something, but he shrugs, deciding to ignore it as he makes his way over to where everyone is starting to gather, awaiting the training instructions for the day.

Gareth greets him a fond smile and a clap on the shoulder, welcoming him back, then turns to the rest of the team. They are going to split into two teams, he instructs, and play against each other. First team to three goals wins. Dele grins like a shark. He loves the training sessions when they get to compete against each other. It was always so fun, and his team almost always won, since it was usually North vs. South. 

He catches Harry’s eye, and Harry smirks at him, both thinking the same thing: we’re going to win.

“We’re going to mix it up this time,” Gareth continues. “I want Jesse, John, and Sterling to come over to the Southern team, with Kane and Eric. And I want Dele, Kieran and Maguire over here on the Northern side, with Kyle and Marcus. Let’s keep it interesting. Pickford, you stay up North. Butland, come down South.” 

This decision is clearly unpopular, the boys groaning as they have to split up from their best mates, and Gareth looks like he is barely refraining from rolling his eyes and telling them to get a grip. They retreat to their newly assigned squads, all of them giving each other fake evils and starting to get in the team spirit. Dele sees Harry trying to catch his eye. When he looks at him, Harry points at him, then points downwards. “You’re going down,” he mouths, as if his actions weren’t clear enough. Dele rolls his eyes, and sticks his tongue out childishly at him. Right, then, if that’s how it’s going to be. It’s on.

\--

The North are 2-1 up, and Dele is determined to win. He nutmegs Eric, but he can’t even stop to gloat about it because he’s too focused on running towards the goal. He’s so hyper-focused that he is taken by complete surprise when John effortlessly slide-tackles him, losing his balance and falling to the floor with a thump. 

The ball goes to the South side, but Gareth calls a quick half-time, asks to speak to Harry briefly.

“I’d watch it, if I were you, John,” Kyle says loudly as Dele lifts himself up. “Kane might batter you like he did that poor Colombian bloke.”

Dele puts his hands on his hips, stepping between them to interrupt them.

“What are you talking about?” 

They eye him cautiously.

“Did Harry not tell you?”

He shakes his head. 

“Tell me what?”

Kyle and John glance at each other, then look back at Dele. They pause for a few seconds, and Dele huffs, impatient. It’s John who finally relents and answers the question.

“He got a yellow ‘cause he went so fuckin’ mad at him for hurting you.”

Kyle hums, finally piping up. 

“Shoulda got a red, really. He definitely whacked him on the sly.”

Dele is stunned. He can’t imagine Harry angry. Especially not angry enough to hit another player on the pitch. And because - what? Because Dele got hurt? He can’t believe it. He looks at Kyle and John seriously, seeing if they look like they’re joking, but for once in their lives they seem deadly serious. 

Jesse and Marcus are messing around next to them, and Dele corrals them, needing further confirmation.

“When I got knocked out at the match,” he starts. “What happened?”

They look at each other, seeming a little confused. Maybe they’re wondering why he’s coming to them for information rather than H or Eric. Why he doesn’t know yet.

“It went to pens,” Marcus starts, and Dele shakes his head. 

“No, no. What happened with Harry?”

“Ah,” Jesse drawls. “He almost knocked the guy out, mate. Can’t believe he only got a yellow if I’m honest.” 

Dele looks at Marcus, who nods seriously at him. 

He can’t believe this is the first he’s hearing about all of this. 

He can’t believe that Harry risked getting red carded in the World fucking Cup because someone knocked into him.

He looks over to the side of the pitch, where Gareth and Harry are still in a deep conversation, and just stares at Harry, filled with strong emotion that he can’t quite place. He wants to cry, he wants to go up and hug Harry for hours, he wants to hit him on the head for being so stupid, he wants to go out to the shops and buy a megaphone just so that he can scream to the entire world that he loves Harry Kane. His best friend. 

Harry must feel his eyes on him, because he looks round, and his serious frown shifts to a soft smile as he waves at Dele, who just about melts. He waves back, and Harry turns back to Gareth. Dele finds himself wanting to go over. Wanting Harry’s attention again. He wants to be around Harry so bad right now and he just wants to never let him go.

  
  



	4. England v. Sweden (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact #1: Me and @dierdele actually met up and wrote this chapter and the next one while we were together! It was super fun and we had a great time and I love her a lot.  
> Fun Fact #2: This chapter was only meant to be one part but it got away from us and got so out of hand we had to split it into two chapters, both of which have heavily over-ran.  
> Fun Fact #3: These chapters got SO far away from us that I had to write a little smutty one-shot based on the concept, published last week - if you think the ideas seem a little similar here (but tamer) that's probably why!  
> Anyway, hope you guys like this chapter. Please let us know if you enjoy!
> 
> xxx

“You absolute fucking LEDGE!”

Dele turns on the spot just in time to see Kieran leap into the air and wrap himself around Harry Maguire’s upper body. Harry catches him with ease and spins around on the spot, both of them yelling with pure joy at each other.

The dressing room at the Cosmos Arena is buzzing with energy. They’ve just beaten Sweden 2-0, securing their place in the World Cup semi-final, and Dele and Maguire are currently being hailed as heroes after both scoring in the match.

Dele stands at the back of the dressing room with Eric, Kyle, and John while they discuss the highlights of the match and Dele’s superb header. Every few seconds, Dele finds himself zoning out from the conversation and looking at the open door. The rest of the players and the coaches have now filled into the dressing room, but there’s still a glaring absence.  

John wraps his arm tightly around Dele’s shoulder and scrubs his knuckles on top of Dele’s head.

“Who knew Dele could give such good head!?” John grins, bumping his hip into Dele’s. Dele rolls his eyes and attempts to loosen John’s hold on him. Jordan Henderson is now blocking Dele’s view of the door and he wants to move so that he can see who is coming and going.

“You took it like a champ!” Kyle exclaims. Dele nods slightly and presses his mouth into a short smile, looking over Kyle’s shoulder. John finally lets up on his grasp and Dele moves over to Eric, giving himself a better view of the door.

He still has no idea where Kane is. Harry had shot off after the match and still hasn’t come into the dressing room. They finished the game _ten minutes_ ago now.

“Nice assist from J-Lingz, too!” John shouts across the room. Jesse is, as usual, hanging off Marcus’ back. He looks over at John and fist bumps the air.   

Dele looks back to the door. He just wants to see Harry already, wants the congratulations and praise that he knows Harry will shower him with for scoring tonight. _Where are you?_ He thinks, sighing under his breath.

“So, Del, you gonna give Maguire a run for his money on the old headers now?” Kyle asks, jostling Dele with his arm.

“I don’t think he can afford to lose the brain cells,” Eric comments. His tone is dry but Dele knows him well enough that he can see the hidden smile.

“That’s a price I’m willing to pay if it gets us to the final!” Kyle laughs and digs Dele in the ribs.

Eric rolls his eyes and gathers his towel and toiletries from his assigned cubby above the bench. “Nah, you did good today. We’re all proud of you, Delboy.”

Eric shoots Dele one of his soft, genuine smiles and Dele gives him a grateful nod.

“Thanks, Diet.”

While Eric goes off to shower, John and Kyle get caught up in a play fight. Apparently Kyle had made some comment about John looking “a little on the scrawny side these days” and now John wants to prove him otherwise. Dele sits down on the bench, tucks his hands beneath his thighs, and does his best not to get involved.

Harry is still nowhere to be seen and it’s been at least thirteen minutes now.

The celebrations are still in full swing. The room is filled with players, coaches, and now the sports therapists, too. Everyone is being checked over and congratulated on their great win.

Dele suddenly realises that Gareth Southgate is also nowhere to be seen. He figures Gareth and Harry are doing some post-match interview, which he finds a little annoying considering it was Dele and Maguire that scored tonight. That isn’t the most annoying part of the situation though. The worst part is the fact that Harry has chosen to go and do some interview instead of celebrating with his team, _with Dele_.

It all just feels very muted. He can see the energy in the room and yet, he doesn’t really feel part of it. He’s on the outside looking in, and all he can think about is the one crucial person that’s missing from the room. The one person he was so excited to see after the match.

The one person who has just walked through the door, his eyes scanning the room and quickly finding Dele.

Dele practically jumps off the bench.

They meet in the middle of the room in a sweeping hug. Harry lifts Dele a little off his feet and Dele grins into the crook of Harry’s neck.

“Where were you!?” Dele asks, breathless. He pulls away slightly so he can look at Harry.

“Just had to speak to the gaffer,” Harry replies quickly, still smiling. He pulls Dele back into a tight hug and squeezes him. “You were the superstar tonight, Del.”

Dele laughs and gestures over to Maguire. “You know I’m not the only one who scored right?”

Harry turns to look at Maguire, shrugs, and turns back to Dele. “Yeah, but Maguire’s known for his headers. You’re not.”

“What am I known for?” Dele asks coyly, chewing his bottom lip between his teeth to stop himself from smiling too much. Harry shakes his head, chuckling.

“You’re known for many things, Dele.”

“I missed you,” Dele blurts out. He isn’t quite sure why. Harry was barely even fifteen minutes late and even if he _had_ been doing an interview, that’s hardly something Dele can be angry about. Still. He wants Harry to know that his absence was at least noticed.

“I was sorting out a little treat for you,” Harry replies calmly, his expression softening. Dele’s breath catches in his throat. He mentally scolds himself for ever thinking Harry would skip out on celebrating with Dele for some dumb post-match interview. Of course, _of course_ Harry was arranging something.  

Dele’s expression perks up and he lightly shoves Harry in the chest. “What are you talking about?” He asks eagerly. “What have you arranged?”

“It’s nothing really, I just thought it would be nice to celebrate with a beer. I convinced the gaffer to let us have a couple in the hotel tonight.”

Dele stares at him in shock. Nobody has _ever_ successfully convinced Gareth Southgate to let the team drink a beer during an international season. Not even when they’re only playing friendlies. Never mind during the World Cup.

“It’s just a couple,” Harry adds cautiously, clearly sensing the disbelief on Dele’s face. “I promised no more than two each.”

Dele beams at him. Two beers was hardly going to lead to a wild night but the fact that Harry even dared to ask Gareth for this pass, nevermind actually _succeed_ in getting it, just serves as a reminder that Harry is maybe the nicest person in the whole world.   

\--

Harry is absolutely not the nicest person in the world. Not by any stretch. Not when he’s kicking dirty clothes around Dele’s hotel room and frowning at him.

“Really, Del?” He picks up an empty granola bar wrapper and flicks into the bin in the corner of the room. “We’ve been here two nights.”

“Why did we have to come to _my_ room?” Dele asks, clearly annoyed. Harry had had the bright idea of taking the beers up to Dele’s room for a little celebration, which is all well and good except for the fact that Dele’s room is a complete mess, and now he’s getting a lecture from Mr. Clean because the rest of the team are going to be up “any second now” and Dele “really needs to learn to clean up after himself.”

“Shut up, H,” Dele says, only half serious. He rolls his eyes and shoves Harry in the chest. Harry catches his arm and easily throws him down onto the bed. Dele rolls with it and dramatically collapses into the pillows, groaning and pretending to be injured.

“Excuse me,” John announces loudly as he walks right into Dele’s room without so much as a single knock. He takes one look at Dele writhing on the bed and holds one arm over his eyes jokingly, with one palm outstretched. “Please stop fucking.”

Dele feels himself go hot at the comment and notices Harry blushing too. They look at each other briefly before Dele scrambles to get off the bed and starts clearing some rubbish off the floor to busy himself.

John drops his arms and strides fully into the room, Kyle Walker in tow, and plonks himself down on the edge of Dele’s bed. The door flings open when Maguire, Trippier, Pickford, and Trent stream in mid-conversation. Everyone is protectively clutching a bottle of Russian beer.

Jesse and Marcus arrive a few minutes later and Jesse suspiciously locks the door behind them. Dele doesn’t even bother asking why.

There are three, four, maybe even five separate conversations going in Dele’s rather small hotel room. He moves between the team, trying to keep up with everyone, but mostly he just looks at Harry across the room and makes faces at him.

Then Kyle has what is maybe his wildest idea ever.

_Truth or dare._

One fucking beer. They’ve had _one_ beer and now they all want to play truth or dare. Dele rolls his eyes and looks at Harry, who is shaking his head at Kyle and trying to de-escalate the situation. But it’s too late; the team are already sitting down cross-legged on Dele’s floor in some haphazard circle.

Dele takes a swig of his beer, shrugs at Harry, and moves to take his place in the circle. _What’s the worst that can happen?_ He thinks as he sits down in between Kieran and Eric.

“This is going to end in tears,” Eric mutters quietly. Dele nudges him with his elbow and winks at him.

“You’re just scared you’re going to have to reveal you cried at Toy Story 3.”

“It’s a very emotional film, Delboy. I’m not ashamed of that at all,” Eric replies, grinning.

Kyle derails everyone’s conversations by holding his hands in the air and clearing his throat loudly. “Right, ladies, listen up,” he says, “I’ve put everyone’s names into this neat little app on my phone and it’s gonna pick out who gets to dare who. Or truth, whatever. But you _will_ be judged if you pussy out and choose truth over dare every time.”

Dele looks across the circle at Harry and feels a weird lurch in his stomach when he finds Harry already looking at him. He wonders what kind of questions are going to come up and if any of the dares will become sexual. He thinks it’s entirely possible that someone in this circle could end up having to kiss a teammate tonight.

As he continues holding Harry’s gaze, he briefly wonders what he would do if he was the one called up to kiss someone, and who he’d pick.

“Trent,” Kyle calls out, breaking Dele’s train of thought. “You are to be dared by…” Kyle clicks something on his phone and then holds up the screen to reveal Harry’s name. “The skipper.”

Harry is sitting with his legs bent and his elbows resting on his knees. He looks over at Trent and grins. “Truth or dare, T?”

Trent’s eyes go wide as he glances nervously around the circle. He finally settles back on Harry and shoots him an apologetic smile. “Truth?”

Harry clearly takes pity on him, asking him a very easy “Who is your best friend on the team?”. Kyle groans and John rolls his eyes dramatically.

“Boring. Like we don’t know he’ll pick Hendo,” John says with a huff. Trent laughs but doesn’t disagree.

“Okay, well what if I say it has to be someone in this room?” Harry adds. John still doesn’t look all that impressed.

Trent chews the inside of his mouth for a moment. Everyone watches him, waiting for a response. After a few seconds he exhales and quietly says, “I’d still pick Hendo.”

“ _Pathetic_ ,” John says, shaking his head. He’s clearly just messing around but Trent still looks a little guilty.

“Right. Boring question. Moving on.” Kyle holds up his phone again and uses his finger to flick the little animated wheel. It spins and Dele watches it slowly tick over until it stops on Jesse’s name.

“Jesse, you’re up,” Kyle says. “Trent, you get to deal the damage.”

“Truth or dare?” Trent asks, flashing a grin at Jesse. Jesse winks at him.

“You know me. Always up a dare.”

Trent ponders for a moment, conferring with Pickford in private.

“Jesse, you have to let Eric text someone from your phone,” Trent says.

“Who?” Jesse asks suspiciously.

“Whoever he wants.”

Jesse sighs but doesn’t resist. He takes his phone out of his pocket and reluctantly unlocks it before handing it over to Eric. Eric takes it with a wide smile.

“Thank you, Jesse.”

“And while Eric is doing that, let’s see who’s up next,” Kyle interrupts. He spins the wheel again on his phone and it stops on Eric. Jesse immediately jumps into action.

“You have to let me text someone from your phone,” he says quickly, clearly proud with himself. Eric frowns.

“I didn’t even pick dare yet.”

“Don’t be boring, Diet,” Dele quips. He desperately wants to see this text exchange take place, especially because he knows Jesse will have so many high-profile names in his contacts.

“Fine. Do your worst.” Eric unlocks his phone and hands it over to Jesse.

“Text Jose,” John suggests, laughing to himself. Jesse suddenly fixes Eric with a very serious glare.

“Do _not_ text Jose.”

“Good idea. Might text ‘ _moving to City, sorry dad.’_ ”

Jesse looks like he’s just had a mini heart attack and Dele can’t help but burst into laughter. He knows Eric would never be so cruel but the idea alone has filled Jesse with absolute fear.

“Jess,” Eric says reassuringly, “I’m not going to text Jose, don’t worry.”

Jesse stays very quiet, simply scrolling through Eric’s contacts looking for the perfect victim. His face suddenly lights up and he bites back a grin. Dele watches him excitedly tap out a message.

Meanwhile, Eric throws Jesse’s phone back to him. “Done,” he says simply. Dele feels himself getting nervous on Jesse’s behalf. The whole circle goes quiet as they wait to find out who Eric has sent a text to.

Jesse grabs his phone and his expression drops as he reads the message. “You’re pure evil, man,” Jesse mutters, but he can’t stop the nervous smile breaking out across his face. “I can’t believe you text _Becks_.”

“What did he say?” Dele asks, leaning forward into the circle.

“ _Hi, you up?_ He even spelled ‘you’ wrong.”

“That’s how you write!” Eric exclaims. Dele shrugs. He’s not wrong.

“Right, well, enjoy getting out of this one,” Jesse says when he hands Eric his phone. Eric calmly reads out the message that Jesse has sent to Christian Eriksen.

“‘ _I’m more famous than you even in Belgium lol’_ , Jess, you know Christian is Danish, right?”

Jesse covers his face with his hands.

“And I would never say lol. He’ll never believe I sent that. Your booty call to David Beckham on the other hand is pretty believable.”

Jesse pouts and looks at his phone. “I don’t even think he’ll text me back.”

The game continues and everyone moves on to their second beer. Dele lounges back in the circle and watches as the dares get more ridiculous. Maguire has to lick a wall, Pickford nonchalantly admits to getting hard from a sports massage (several times) and Trippier is forced to reveal his emotional attachment to a little lion teddy he has named Rory.

It’s not until Harry is fixed with his first question that Dele really pays attention. _Who is your favourite person to hang out with on the team, and why?_

Dele just knows what Harry is going to say even before he says it. He’s going to pick Dele.

“Well, it has to be Dele,” Harry says sheepishly. He looks at Dele across the circle and holds his gaze. “Just because he’s the best person to watch movies with.”

Dele is speechless. Harry’s answer is a blatant lie. Not the part where he picked Dele, obviously, but the reason for it. Dele knows he’s one of the _worst_ people to watch movies with because he complains if it’s not a film he’s chosen, or, in Harry’s case, he simply falls asleep halfway through the film and cuddles Harry like a koala bear instead.

Harry is still holding his gaze, still giving Dele just the tiniest hint of a smirk. Dele’s heart is racing in his chest and he doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why Harry just outright lied like that. Surely Harry doesn’t actually like the fact that Dele eats all of his snacks, gets crumbs in the bed, talks the whole way through the movie, falls asleep, and then idly cuddles him half to death. _Right?_

Dele doesn’t have much time to linger on the thought because Kyle is daring John to swap clothes with someone in the circle, and the someone he’s picked is Harry.

The team cheer as Harry stands up and begins to peel off his grey jumper and black t-shirt. He hands them over to John and then quickly unbuttons his jeans, pulling them down to his ankles and stepping out of them like it’s no big deal he’s standing in just his black boxers right now.

Dele forces himself to look away because he knows that for some reason he’s going bright red.

John strips down to his underwear and tosses his outfit over to Harry, who does his best to squeeze into the too-small clothes. The jeans just about fasten, but John’s stupid Versace t-shirt is far too tight on Harry, clinging to him like a second skin. John, by comparison, looks extra comfy in Harry’s big jumper and the jeans don’t fit him too badly at all. Dele doesn’t know why, but he’s struck with a sudden spike of jealousy. He’s worn nearly all of Harry’s jumpers at some point but this is one of Harry’s new Boss jumpers, and Dele hasn’t actually had this one on yet.

He looks over at John, watches him pull the sleeves over his hands, and huffs a little. It doesn’t even look good on him.

The game goes on. Dele tries not to look at John and tries not to let it bother him that he’s wearing Harry’s new jumper before Dele has. Except it _is_ bothering him, because only Dele has the privilege of being able to wear Harry’s clothes and he doesn’t even care that it’s just for the game. He stills glares at Harry and John regardless.

In the next round of questioning, Jesse admits that he thinks the sexiest person in the room is… himself. It comes as a shock to absolutely no one and Kyle doesn’t even bother arguing with his answer.

“Dele,” Jesse says suddenly. Dele looks up, confused. His name is on Kyle’s screen and Jesse is grinning at him. “Truth or dare?”

Dele looks at Harry and takes a deep breath. “Dare.”

“Show us your YouTube search history,” Jesse demands. Dele frowns, confused. He thinks it’s a rubbish dare. Until he remembers what he was searching on YouTube while in bed last night. _Fuck._

“Really? That’s shit.” Dele mumbles.

Jesse shakes his head, laughing.

“Nah, nah, don’t try and get out of it. Come on.”

Dele rubs his face, desperately trying to think of a way to get out of this. He doesn’t want to be the first person to turn down a dare so he figures he’s just going to have to show everyone and play it out. He doubts anyone will say anything, anyway. Hopes.

Jesse takes Dele’s phone and begins to read out the search history. He starts at the bottom and reads up to the most recent:

_England colombia fouls_

_England colombia dele_

_England colombia dele knocked out_

_England colombia harry kane_

_Harry kane colombia game_

_Harry kane defends dele colombia_

_Harry kane pushes colombia player_

_Harry kane top 100 goals_

Dele keeps a straight face. He knows the worst thing he can do right now is look guilty, or try to cover up his searches. He reasons with himself that the team have no reason to laugh at him; he simply wanted to know what happened at the Colombia game after he got knocked out. The top 100 goals? He doesn’t really have an explanation for that part.

“Wow, didn’t realise we had a Harry Kane fanboy among us,” Kieran comments. He nudges Maguire with his elbow and raises an eyebrow at him and they both burst into laughter.

“I’m not explaining myself to you heathens,” Dele mumbles. He can’t bring himself to look at Harry yet but he can see in his peripheral vision that Harry is grinning at him.

“That’s a big word for you, Delboy,” Eric laughs. He nods at Kyle. “Who’s next?”

Dele has never been more grateful for Eric Dier.

While everyone watches Kyle’s phone to see who it will land on next, Dele takes this opportunity to steal a glance at Harry. Once again, Harry is already looking back at him. Dele’s lips part and he feels a shaky breath escape him. Harry gives him a tiny smile and Dele swallows around the lump in his throat.

“Fuck,” Kyle says suddenly, pulling Dele’s attention. It’s Kyle’s name on the screen and now Dele has to come up with some kind of dare for him.   

“Let John give you a new tattoo,” Dele says, his mouth curling into a shameless smile. Kyle and John are known for their shit tattoos so Dele figures one more can’t hurt.

Kyle finds a Sharpie pen in Dele’s room and hands it over to John, who immediately gets to work peeling off Kyle’s hoodie and t-shirt. John is in a fit of giggles and he’s decided to write on Kyle’s ribs, which is apparently where he’s the most ticklish, and John clearly knows it.

The whole team watch with joy as John scribbles “I love John Stones 5” onto Kyle’s ribs, but all Dele can think about is the fact that John has almost just rubbed the ink into Harry’s new jumper. He feels annoyed that John didn’t think to pull the sleeves up first, but he stops himself from saying anything.

Maguire is up next. He’s asked which famous footballer he’d date if he had to date one. He deliberates for a moment and then turns and nods at Trippier, who grins affectionately and puts his head on Maguire’s shoulder.

“Thanks, mate,” Trippier says.

“You know you could have picked a female footballer, right?” Eric points out. Maguire shrugs.

“I’d still pick Tripps.”

“Captain Kane, you’re up!” Kyle calls out, holding out the phone to reveal Harry’s name.

“Go easy on me,” Harry says pleadingly to Maguire. Dele doesn’t think Maguire could come up with anything cruel even if he wanted to.

“Show everyone your last text conversation,” Maguire replies. Harry meets Dele’s gaze across the circle and Dele knows that that means it must be his conversation that’s about to come out. He desperately tries to remember what he last said via text and prays it wasn’t anything weird or bitchy. He _does_ have a tendency to dig at Henderson from time to time, just on the basis that Henderson makes comments about being the second England captain and Dele _hates_ that.

“It’s just Del,” Harry says when he pulls out his phone. Dele frowns at his poor choice of words.

“What do you mean _just_ Del?”

Harry immediately corrects himself. “Believe it or not, it’s this wonderful man over here!” He gestures to Dele and John rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically.

“Yes, we can believe it. Read out the conversation.”

“I bet Dele has been slagging off Hendo again,” Pickford laughs.

“Why are you slagging off Hendo?” Kieran asks.

“Dele’s worried Hendo’s gonna take the captain band off Kane,” Pickford replies, winking at Dele.

Dele is absolutely not going to take the bait. He shakes his head in disapproval and ignores the fact that Trent is shooting daggers at him right now.

“He hasn’t been slagging off Hendo,” Kane interrupts, then quietly adds, “Not today, anyway.” He scrolls up his phone and begins to summarise his conversation with Dele from before the game. “He asks me to play Fortnite, I tell him we have to go to training, he tells me to skip training and play Fortnite.”

“Oooh, naughty,” John coos.

“Then we just arrange to meet for breakfast. Dele asks me if I’m going to score today. I say _he_ will score, which, by the way, I was right about.” Harry smiles proudly across at Dele and Dele feels a strange fluttering in his chest. “Then it’s just more stuff about Fortnite, the new weapon, new mode. Then Dele asks me when we’re going to watch Shrek 2.”

“Wow, boring!” John pipes up. “I thought it was going to be much saucier than that.”

Dele glares at him. Not only does he insult Dele so blatantly, but he has the audacity to do it while wearing Harry’s jumper, too.

Jesse's name is pulled up next and John asks him to describe his dream boy or girl. Jesse winks at Marcus before saying, “Tall, dark, and handsome.”

“Three out of three,” Marcus comments, playfully squeezing the back of Jesse’s neck and making him break out into one of his famous cheeky grins.

“Alright, lover boys,” Kyle says, lightly punching John’s knee for no reason in particular. “Marcus you’re up next.”

Jesse looks around the circle and stops on Pickford, who glares at him questioningly.

“Don’t fucking make him suck me off or anything,” Pickford says sharply, chewing loudly on his gum.

“In your wildest dreams, man,” Jesse replies, tutting. “Give Marcus your gum.”

Pickford leans back defensively. “What the fuck for?”

“So he can chew it,” Jesse explains. Marcus immediately looks disgusted.

“No way, Jess.” Marcus makes a face.

“Just for ten seconds,” Jesse adds sweetly. Marcus still doesn’t look convinced.

“It’s not even got any flavour left in it,” Pickford says, still chewing. He spits it out into his hand anyway and leans out into the circle to pass it to Marcus. Marcus makes no effort to collect the offending item and instead looks at Jesse.

“I’d rather forfeit.”

“You’re going to pussy out over some chewing gum?” Jesse laughs. “Would you rather suck him off then?”

“ _Now_ we’re getting into the swing of things,” Kyle comments.

“I told you this was all going to end in tears,” Eric says to Dele. Dele grins at him and watches the scene unfold in front of him.

Marcus, of course, declines the invitation to suck off Jordan Pickford. With a little peer pressure from Jesse, he eventually caves and takes the gum, chewing it in his mouth for exactly ten seconds before spitting it into his hand and throwing it in the bin.

Dele’s name comes up on Kyle’s phone and he decides to opt for a truth. He really does _not_ want to suck off Jordan Pickford.

Marcus ponders over his question for a while. He keeps conferring with Eric and then with Jesse, until eventually he clears his throat and asks Dele if he’s ever let someone take the fall for something he did.

Dele immediately looks at Harry. Harry looks back at him, a little confused.

“Well,” Dele begins, his gaze still locked to Harry. “After the Panama match, me and Harry snuck off into town for some dessert. And when-”

“Oooh,” Kyle interrupts, nudging John but keeping his his focus on Dele. “So that’s where you went. We thought you’d just gone off for a quickie.”

Dele opens his mouth to say something but can’t think of any possible way to address a comment like _that_. He really hates his teammates sometimes. Kyle Walker in particular.

“Well- no,” Dele continues, sighing. He notices Harry laughing to himself. “We went for dessert. Anyway, when we got back, I know Gaz wasn’t too happy with us.” Dele looks back at Harry and smiles at him softly. “I know he was calling you, asking where we were, and I know when we got back to the hotel you went and spoke to him and took the fall for us.”

Harry presses his lips together into a smile but doesn’t say anything.

“So, yeah, I know you did that, and I pretended not to know at the time but- yeah, thanks, H.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry says, but his voice is a little choked.

“Did you get a proper bollocking?” Pickford asks. Harry shakes his head, still looking at Dele.

“Nah, it was fine.”

Dele’s heart flutters a little in his chest. He knows that, once again, Harry is lying to protect him. To make sure that Dele doesn’t feel bad about any of it, even though really it was Dele’s fault just as much as it was Harry’s. It makes him feel warm and safe to know that Harry thinks he’s worth protecting.  

Kyle activates the spinner and Jesse is next up. He chooses dare like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Only a pussy chooses truth, man,” Jesse drawls in his cocky accent. Dele decides it’s time to put Jesse back in his place.

“Prank call Jose,” Dele says simply. Jesse’s smirk is wiped clean from his face. “Tell him you’re leaving United.”

“Fuck off,” Jesse replies, looking to Marcus for backup. Marcus just shrugs.

“You’re going to pussy out over a prank call?” Marcus asks, mocking Jesse’s earlier comment. Jesse pouts at him and turns to the rest of his team, looking for someone who will come to his rescue. He settles on Harry and taps his arm before pointing at Dele.

“You’re really going to let him do this?” Jesse asks. Harry laughs and holds up his hands.

“Not my dare.”

“I hate all of yous,” Jesse whines. “I’m not prank calling Jose. No way. That’s worse than sucking off Jordan Pickford, man.”

“Wouldn’t let you near me,” Jordan bites back, clearly offended. “Can everyone please stop trying to suck me off!”

“Prank call Jose, or leave the game. Your choice.” Dele smiles to himself. If there’s one thing Jesse hates, it’s being left out. Jesse sighs heavily.

“What’s the forfeit option?”

“Well the forfeit has to be worse than the dare,” Harry points out. Everyone hums in agreement.

“Much, much worse,” John adds. Kyle slaps his knee again but John doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s too busy watching Jesse suffer.

“What’s the forfeit?” Jesse asks again. There’s definitely an element of fear in his voice.

Dele remembers thinking that someone would end up kissing a teammate tonight, and he knows instantly that _that_ is the perfect forfeit.

“Spin the bottle. Whoever it lands on, you have to kiss them.” Dele pauses, and then adds, “Properly.”

“Easy,” Jesse shrugs, all nonchalant. “I’ll do that, then.”

Jesse finds a random empty beer bottle and places it in the middle of the circle. Everyone falls silent as he flicks it and sets it spinning. Jordan looks physically uncomfortable at the prospect it might land on him. Dele briefly wonders if Jesse will actually take this seriously, wonders if he’ll use tongue and all.

The bottle comes to a stop on Maguire and everyone looks at Jesse expectantly.

“Well,” Jesse says, taking a deep breath. “Slabhead, let’s do this.”

 

_To Be Continued..._


	5. England v. Sweden (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth or Dare evolves into Spin the Bottle!! We hope you guys enjoy this latest update <3 Just FYI: once again, your fave authors (us) are publishing this from the same room!! Pray for us that we see some Dele/Kane goals tomorrow at Wembley! xx

Maguire and Jesse’s kiss lasts all of five seconds, but both look thoroughly uncomfortable when they separate. Jesse takes a swig of his beer and pretends to wash his mouth out, and Kieran flicks his head and tells him to stop being a dick. Jesse lets out an indignant grunt, but then he rolls his eyes and follows suit with the rest of the lads, who all turn to look at Maguire expectantly. 

“Alright then Slabhead, spin the fuckin’ bottle then,” Pickford says impatiently. 

“Wait, aren’t we still playing truth or dare?” 

“Nah, nah, nah,” Kyle says excitedly, hitting John on the side of the head accidentally as he waves his hands around. “Lets keep going with this. We’re on to something here.”

Maguire looks a little pained at first, but quickly comes around once he sees everyone laughing and getting excited, and he laughs a little himself. Dele, though, can’t decide if he’s excited or not. He thinks it will be funny, but there’s also a weird knot in his stomach that he can’t really explain.

Dele looks up as Maguire scrambles over to grab the bottle from Jesse and place it closer to the middle of the circle. He spins it clumsily, the bottle almost skidding out of place, but eventually steadying, completing a shaky circle until it finally points to Kieran, who is sat right next to him. 

Kieran laughs a little awkwardly.

“Come here then, ya big forehead.”

Dele can’t help himself but laugh at that nickname.  _ Poor Maguire _ , he thinks, only being known for his massive head. He wonders for the second time that day what his defining characteristic would be, since Harry never really answered him earlier. He jokes to himself that it’s probably his innate coolness. 

Maguire and Trippier share a brief kiss and then break apart. Kieran smirks at Maguire, who is staring a little blankly at him.

“What’s that in your pocket, mate?”

Maguire blinks himself out of his stupor and shoves him away, laughing. Kieran grins widely as he reaches for the bottle. 

The bottle spins in a neat circle, and Dele worries for a second that it’s going to land on him. He doesn’t want to kiss Kieran. He loves him, but... no. Thankfully, though, it stops just before him, pointing just to the right of Eric. 

Eric rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically.  

“Aren’t we too old for this?”

He’s met with a series of boos, and Jesse throws an empty crisp packet at him that he finds in the corner of Dele’s room.

Eric finally sighs and gives in, letting Kieran peck at his lips. It’s maybe the most awkward kiss Dele has ever seen, even more so than Maguire and Jesse. He’s tempted to make a jab about it, but he keeps quiet just this once. It’s probably a wise decision.

Eric leans forward again and spins the bottle. 

Trent giggles as it lands on him. 

“Oh, god,” Eric says, embarrassed. “He’s only a kid!” He protests.

When he’s just met with shouts and moans, Eric rolls his eyes and presses his lips briefly against Trent’s before lurching back.

“Nah,” Jesse says, wagging his finger.

“What?”

“That’s not good enough!”

“What? We fucking kissed, didn’t we? Not like you and Maguire were having the snog of your lives.”

Jesse shakes his head emphatically, and the rest of the squad start to agree with him, piping up themselves. Kyle shouts that they should be disqualified. When John starts to chant the words “Red Card!” over and over again, Kyle joins in, and when Dele looks over he sees that Harry is laughing along with John and Kyle so hard that he’s barely making a sound anymore. Dele smiles at them, affection bubbling in his chest. They’re all acting like they’ve had much more than just a couple of beers.  _ They’re all so cute _ , he thinks.  _ Harry is so cute _ .

Dele looks back at Eric who’s still arguing with Jesse, and he decides to throw his two cents in.

“Why don’t they just do it again?”

Eric frowns at him.

“That’s not the point, Delboy. The point is that we shouldn’t need to.”

Jesse shrugs carelessly.

“Right, lads, who votes that Eric and baby Trent here are disqualified?” 

Eric scoffs as everyone in the circle but Dele and Maguire raise their hands, and Trent looks a little relieved. Maybe this would be a little too much for him without his protective big brother Henderson. He’s probably glad that Eric facilitated his exit from the game. 

“Ridiculous, mate.” Eric grumbles, crossing his arms and shuffling back a little. 

“I don’t make the rules,” Jesse starts, before he goes on to outline some new rules he has just made up: “Every kiss from now on has to up the ante. Get longer. More proper.” 

Everyone laughs and nods, and Dele wonders if everyone else feels the same sort of anxious buzzing in their heads that he does at the thought of having to properly make out with his teammates. 

Jesse says they’ve gotta spin the bottle again to see who’s turn it is to start off, and he twists the bottle by its neck aggressively. 

When it finally slows to a stop, it’s pointing right at Harry, who laughs in a self-deprecating way. He mutters a quiet “oh, God,” that Dele only just manages to hear over the buzzing in his head that has suddenly magnified three-fold. He catches himself wishing that the bottle is going to land on him, then quickly wishing the opposite, then wishing that Harry doesn’t kiss anyone at all. He gets a little stressed at the storm of emotions that whirl through him. Why is he this bothered about Harry kissing someone in a stupid game of spin the bottle?

Dele holds his breath as Harry spins the bottle, and actually forgets to breathe for a second as the bottle slowly passes him. It spins for another ten seconds, finally pointing up at John, who grins widely.

“Oh Captain, my Captain! Lay it on me, big man!” 

Harry smacks his arm and laughs, and John laughs too, head ducking down next to Kyle’s as they dissolve into a fit of giggles. 

Dele still hasn’t quite managed to breathe, so he doesn’t join in with everyone’s laughter. He can’t pinpoint his emotions at all. They’re all over the place. He has absolutely no idea what he wants to happen next, but all he knows is that for some reason he’s desperate for the game to end. He doesn’t want to have to see John and Harry kiss. 

John finally stops laughing, and looks back at Harry with a smirk.

“You’re lookin’ pretty good as well, skipper,” he pokes him in the chest. “I think it’s the shirt. Nice tight fit. Pretty fashionable too, I reckon.”

Harry smiles back at him, joking that he got it off some supermodel that he knows. John shrugs faux-modestly, and bats his eyelashes up at Harry. 

Dele feels himself frowning, and tries to even out his expression, but to no avail. He feels himself getting a little annoyed. If they’re going to kiss, why don’t they just fucking do it already instead of flirting?

John pauses for a second, then leans into Harry and kisses gently at his lips. He’s holding Harry’s face in his hands for effect, that much is obvious, but when Dele sees John’s fingers brush Harry’s cheekbone, he feels a hot swooping sensation in his gut. He doesn’t know what emotion it is. All he knows is that it’s making him feel sick. 

They break apart after what must only be a few seconds, but to Dele it feels like several minutes have passed by. When it’s over, he feels an unexplainably deep sense of relief settle in his stomach. He feels like he can breathe again.

He watches with hazy, unfocused eyes as the bottle spins again. He feels his heart stop in his chest when it lands again on Harry. He’s not kidding when he thinks that he actually can’t watch it happen again without having to leave.

Jesse shakes his head.

“No double kisses. Spin again, Stonesy!”

John pouts at Harry jokingly, but he’s only met with Harry rolling his eyes. Dele watches him like a hawk and hopes that Harry will look up at him. He doesn’t. It’s killing him.

The bottle swivels on its axis, landing decisively on Pickford. 

John gags, causing Pickford to cuff him around the head with a sour expression. They glare at each other for a few seconds before John gives in and starts to laugh. Jordan manages to keep up the glare for longer, huffing and gripping John by his shoulder and pulling him in for a kiss. 

Dele thinks this one seems much shorter than Stonesy’s kiss with Harry, but no one else pulls them up on it, so he remains quiet. He feels like he doesn’t want everyone to know how much he is still thinking about their kiss. How much it’s still bothering him.

“God, Picks, you just slobbered all over me,” John pulls a face, wiping at his mouth. “Can’t believe you went for tongue!”

Pickford shrugs, looking entirely unbothered.

“Can’t believe you wouldn’t let me, you girl. Meant to be a kiss, isn’t it?”

John stares at him, looking like he wants to argue, but Kyle shakes his head at him.

“Don’t bother, Stonesy,” Kyle bows his head sagely. “Everyone has their own way of doing things.”

This, of course, makes John dissolve into another fit of giggles as he downs a little bit more of his beer. 

“Alright, Gandhi!” 

Dele rolls his eyes, but can feel himself start to enjoy the night a little bit more. Especially when Pickford has to kiss Jesse, and Jesse pulls back with the same horrified expression. Dele laughs at the utter disgust on Jesse’s face, and his eyes finally meet Harry’s from across the circle. Harry’s a little flushed, the alcohol clearly having a little bit of an effect on him as he is so unused to it. His hair is flopping down onto his forehead, and he looks so relaxed. He grins so widely at Dele that his eyes scrunch shut. Dele feels something flutter in his chest. Fuck. He loves Harry so much. He grins back at him, but he can feel it probably looks a little manic.

Jesse’s turn has landed on Marcus, and no one seems surprised in the slightest that their kiss is voluntarily at least double the length of Jesse’s and Pickford’s. In fact, they only stop begrudgingly when Harry pulls them apart.

“Oi, I’m not upping the ante on these two if they go any further.”

Everyone around the circle nods and agrees. 

“Good call, Harry 2.” Harry Maguire nods, and Kieran shoves him. Dele hears him quietly rib him and tell him he’s number 2, but only just catches Maguire’s wide puppy-dog eyes and Kieran patting him on the head before he turns away and looks at Pickford, who is smirking at him.

“That’s why he’s the Captain, innit?” Pickford says, winking at Dele. “Hendo could never have made a call like that.” 

Trent gives them both an idle glare, and once again Dele tries to ignore it. He’s got enough on his plate right now without this drama. It’s mostly irrelevant that the drama is Dele’s own doing for being a bitch. 

Marcus looks a little embarrassed by all the attention, but he takes it in his stride and gives the bottle a quick flick. The bottle spins quickly and sharply, landing on Kyle. 

Kyle gives Marcus a devilish look, and Dele feels a sense of foreboding. Kyle is most definitely going to up the ante. Everyone can tell. John even whispers “Ooooh.” Dele rolls his eyes. There was probably no need for that. 

Kyle kisses Marcus’s lips softly just once before he starts to coax Marcus’s mouth open with his tongue, and Picks lets out a little outraged noise when Marcus lets him. It doesn’t last very long, to be fair, but it’s more the fact that this precedent has now been set. Everyone seems just a little more antsy, a little more on edge. The game seems a bit more risky now.

Marcus pulls back and whispers something in Jesse’s ear, who is looking moody. Not that he doesn’t look like that, you know,  _ all the time _ , but he looks particularly unhappy after seeing Kyle and Marcus make out.

Kyle grins wolfishly when he spins the bottle, only intensifying when it lands on John.

“Ah,” he says with a self-satisfied smug, “Just the man I wanted to see!”

John laughs a little helplessly, out of breath, and wipes a stray tear away on the sleeve of his - Harry’s - jumper. Dele can’t remember five minutes going by of the night that John hasn’t been giggling to himself. He doesn’t know why it’s annoying him so much, but it’s taking all his self-control to stop himself from chiding John for ruining Harry’s jumper.

Kyle crooks his finger to John, and when John leans in, Kyle doesn’t even bother with niceties, just goes straight for the tongue. Dele looks away from the two City boys, glancing next to them, where Harry is watching them make out. His lips are slightly parted, and he looks a little gormless. Dele catches himself thinking for the third or fourth time tonight that Harry is adorable. 

The kiss only lasts like fifteen or twenty seconds, but it’s enough for John to have a dopey looking grin on his face when they pull away from each other, forgetting for a second what he’s meant to be doing. Harry has to nudge him gently and point at the bottle before John remembers.

“Oh, yeah!” he laughs. “Thanks, Cap.”

John spins the bottle a little wildly, and it spins for a long time before it eventually slows, and Dele bites his lip with a bit of dread as it stops, pointing at him.

John grins at him and starts crawling towards him, and all that Dele can think about is how ridiculous he looks. Like a big stupid puppy, unsteady on it’s paws, crawling towards him with a big silly smile on his face. He laughs despite himself at the image, and John starts laughing too, collapsing next to him. 

“Alright?” John asks, looking at him intently even through that big stupid grin, and Dele nods. He’s starting to feel a little stupid about how annoyed he’s been at John all night, and hopes that it hasn’t been too obvious. John leans forward. He pecks at Dele’s lips for a couple of seconds, then he sucks on Dele’s lower lip. Dele knows they’ve got to up the ante. If they don’t make out properly for a few seconds, they’ll be disqualified. Dele won’t be able to kiss anyone else.  _ He won’t be able to kiss Harry _ . He’s startled by that urgent thought and slips his tongue into John’s mouth insistently. 

He kisses John messily for another ten or so seconds before he starts to pull back, and John cheekily bites his lip one last time before he lets him go completely. He’s a bit surprised that the kiss was sort of nice, but supposes he shouldn’t be. Harry certainly seemed to have fun earlier with him. 

His internal scolding isn’t enough this time, and he physically shakes his head at the thoughts swimming around in his mind. He sets them aside, and braces himself as he spins the bottle. 

He tries to keep his mind blank, tries not to just pray and pray and pray for Harry. Tries to ignore his thoughts screaming at him asking him  _ why  _ he wants it to be Harry so bad. He almost wants to close his eyes, but he can’t look away. Everything in his mind screams louder and louder as the bottle slows down on its approach to Harry, rising to a crescendo when it stops squarely in front of him. Harry smiles across at Dele softly. 

Dele crawls forward on autopilot, but he can’t hear a thing. He can barely see. His head is screaming at him so hard it’s fit to burst, and he can’t focus his eyes on anything but Harry’s face. He feels like he might be sick again. 

He finally reaches Harry, and he just sits in front of him, cross-legged. He’s at a loss. He can’t physically bring himself to lean in. Can’t do anything but sit and stare at Harry. Harry puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and it feels like all the heat in Dele’s body is suddenly transferred to that one area. It’s hot. It’s burning. 

Dele sees Harry’s face start to move closer to him, and, for the second time of the night, he feels short on air. He feels trapped. He feels lost. But as he looks into Harry’s eyes briefly, he’s also hit with a sudden wave of something much warmer. Despite all of these emotions whirling around, as he looks in Harry’s eyes, he suddenly and inexplicably feels safe. 

That’s the last thought he has before he feels Harry’s lips on his own, and the screams in his head quieten all at once. He thinks he hears a whimper, thinks it might be his, and he eagerly parts his lips and lets Harry’s tongue slide into his mouth. Dele can’t believe how amazing it feels. He knows that John kissed him like this too, knows that he’s kissed so many girls like this, but this just feels so  _ different.  _ It’s Harry. It’s Harry who is nibbling on his lip. It’s Harry who is pulling back to give Dele a final peck on the lips, and it’s Harry who Dele desperately chases with his mouth to give him one last peck.

Thirty seconds was nowhere near long enough. 

He crawls back, a little dumb-struck, and can’t believe what just happened. 

He still feels hot all over. 

He can’t stop staring at Harry. At Harry’s lips. At that stupidly tight shirt of John’s that Harry is wearing, clinging to his muscles like a second skin.

He’s still staring at Harry when Harry coughs awkwardly and spins the bottle again. 

It lands on John.

All of Dele’s warm feelings fade away and he watches with an ice-filled stomach as John and Harry laugh at each other, saying something that Dele can’t even hear. John leans in, kisses at Harry’s mouth, then pulls away. It’s not over though. John straddles Harry, swings his legs over him, and puts his fingers in Harry’s hair. Dele feels the ice melt in his gut. He feels a hot spike of rage. What the  _ fuck  _ is John doing? Dele shifts half way up from his seat on the floor, about to get up and - he’s not sure what he’s going to do, but he just knows he has to do  _ something -  _ but he stops in his tracks when he sees Harry push John off him.

“That’s enough,” Harry says, laughing. “I think I’m officially done.” 

Dele sits himself back down with a quiet thump.

He can feel himself staring at Harry again, but he can’t stop himself. Harry looks back at him and they just look at each other for a few moments. 

Jesse is the one to speak first, announcing that he might also be ready to quit. After this, everyone else agrees, one by one, that they should probably call it a night. Kyle jokes that they’re all lightweights, and that Harry just couldn’t handle how sexy John is. Harry rolls his eyes and looks back at Dele.

“Well, I think I’m gonna go get a drink or something.”

“Another drink?” Kyle asks quizzically. “Thought we were on a two beer maximum, golden boy.”

“Not a beer. Like a hot chocolate or something. Anyone want one?”

Harry is technically addressing the whole squad, but it’s obvious by the way he’s staring dead ahead at Dele that he’s really only inviting him.

Dele stands up and doesn’t bother to nod. He knows that Harry will take it as acceptance. He shoots an unwelcoming look around the circle, hoping they get the message that he doesn’t want them to come along. His gaze turns a little meaner when he looks across at John, who is shrugging off Harry’s jumper to change outfits with him. He’s still glaring when John looks back at him, but John just grins and waves him out. He doesn’t know what the glint in John’s eyes means but he doesn’t care. He just wants to get out of here.

He feels Harry link their arms together as he leads them out of the room, telling everyone to have a good night, and he sighs with relief. He leans further into Harry’s warm grip and smiles. All the stress of the night starts to melt away. 

“You good?” Harry mutters to him, closing the door behind them.

Dele smiles.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

\--

Dele stands by the vending machine in the hotel lobby while Harry feeds it Russian notes and figures out how to make it pour a hot chocolate. The lobby is empty except for the two young women at reception. They both smile over at Dele and Dele smiles back, even treating one of them to a little wink.  

“Do you want sugar?” Harry asks, frowning at the machine’s screen. He presses a button and then freezes. “Oh, I think I did two.”

Dele leans against the edge of the vending machine and watches Harry struggle with the Russian instructions. Harry looks completely baffled by the on-screen instructions and Dele is enjoying seeing him so perplexed. 

“I _ think _ this is a hot chocolate,” Harry says as he hands a white paper cup to Dele. Dele takes it in both hands and gently blows against the frothy top. 

“Thanks, H,” Dele smiles. He lets the cup warm his hands while he waits for Harry to make a second drink. 

“Oh,” Harry says, laughing at himself when he takes the cup out of the vending machine, “I made a coffee by accident, but it doesn't matter.”

They walk to the back of the hotel and find a small, deserted courtyard that doesn’t have too much light pollution. It’s chilly outside and Dele has to pull his jacket a little tighter to stop himself shivering. He keeps thinking about Stonesy wearing Harry’s jumper and how warm it looked, how he wishes he had it on right now.

He sips at the hot chocolate before it’s adequately cooled and ends up scalding his tongue. 

“So impatient,” Harry mutters when he sees Dele’s pained expression. He gives him a little rub on the back of his neck and Dele can’t help but lean into the touch. His tongue burns hot in his mouth but having Harry affectionately touch the nape of his neck like that somehow makes it hurt a little less.

They move through the courtyard and beyond it, through a clearing in the bushes that leads to an open field behind the hotel. It’s much darker out here and when Dele looks up, he can see the sky glittering with stars. 

He stares up at them for a minute, completely mesmerised. He can’t believe how many there are, how  _ bright  _ they are. Each one is a tiny twinkling dot but he knows they’re all bigger than Earth, bigger than the sun, even. He can’t comprehend their size or how far away they are. He doesn’t know what they’re made of or how they stay in one place or why they all look the same size, but he can certainly appreciate how beautiful they are against the night sky.  

When he looks back at Harry, Harry is staring at him with a small, meaningful smile on his face.

“What?” Dele asks. 

Harry shakes his head, but his smile persists. “Nothing.” 

“Look at the stars!” Dele enthuses. Harry looks up with him and they both stand in silence, staring into space. He’s not sure why, but Dele suddenly has the urge to reach out and hold Harry’s hand. He feels a little bit vulnerable looking into space like this.

“It’s beautiful,” Harry says quietly. Dele nods. He remembers how much Harry used to talk about the stars during the late training sessions in winter. He would point out constellations to the team and mostly everyone would groan, but Dele always liked listening to Harry’s brief astronomy lessons.

“You know all the constellations don’t you?”

“I know some of them,” Harry replies. 

“Show me them.” 

Harry looks around and then takes Dele’s hand. Dele doesn’t know what is happening but he goes along with it anyway. Harry pulls him further into the field and then takes his jacket off and lays it down on the floor. 

“Here, sit,” he instructs, letting go of Dele’s hand.

“On your coat?” Dele asks, confused. His hand feels cold and empty now. “But, it will get dirty. Aren’t you cold?” 

“I’m sure you paid ten times as much for your jeans as I did for that coat.” 

Dele grins because it’s true - these jeans were  _ very  _ expensive and he’s glad Harry has finally noticed.

“You’re such a gentleman,” Dele says enthusiastically, teasing Harry with a loved-up expression. He sits down on the ground and leans back on his hands, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. 

Harry sets himself down next to Dele, closing the gap between them so that they both fit on the coat. Dele scoots a little closer until their thighs are pressed together. 

“Okay,” Dele says, looking up. “Tell me what these Russian stars are.” 

Dele can feel Harry staring at him. He hears Harry laugh a little in his throat. 

“Del, you know these aren’t Russian stars right?” 

“What?” Dele asks, putting on his best confused expression.

“They’re just stars in space. You can see them from any country.” 

Dele grins and Harry suddenly clicks. He rolls his eyes and gives Dele a little shove. Dele’s entire body warms at the spot where Harry touches him. He swallows the lump in his throat and tries to ignore how fast his heart is beating. 

“What’s that one, the bright one?” Dele asks, pointing to a bright star in the middle of the sky.

“Vega,” Harry answers easily. He points at another constellation, one Dele recognises. “Do you know this one?” 

“Yeah,” Dele nods. “I don’t know what it’s called but I’ve definitely seen it before.” 

“It’s called Orion,” Harry says, smiling. He begins to explain the constellation and the stars that are in it, but Dele is distracted trying to remember where he knows the name from. 

“Oh,” he says suddenly. “Like from Men in Black!”

Harry turns and frowns at him, clearly confused.

“Orion, it’s in the cat’s collar isn’t it, the three stars. Orion’s belt.” Dele beams at him and Harry just laughs, shaking his head incredulously. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Men in Black.” 

“I’ve seen it, but I forgot about the Orion thing.”

They stare up at the stars for a little while longer. Harry tells Dele all of their names but Dele forgets them instantly. The only one he remembers is Orion, because of Men in Black. He likes listening to Harry though, likes the way he explains things. Dele thinks he could listen to Harry talk for hours. It makes his heart hurt to think of people mocking Harry’s speech impediment because he personally  _ loves  _ the way Harry talks. His voice goes all high pitched when he gets excited and Dele just, he likes that a lot.  

Harry starts enthusing about one of the planets and Dele lets him go off on a tangent for a few minutes. He nods in all the right places and pretends to be taking it in, but really he’s just watching Harry talk, watching the way his mouth moves around excitable vowels, the way he smiles at the end of every sentence. 

Harry Kane is brighter than any of these stars, Dele thinks. 

“So you find the North star by following the question mark and then you just-” 

Dele rests his head on Harry’s shoulder and Harry seems to forget the rest of his sentence. He looks down at Dele and takes a slow, deep breath. Dele nuzzles into him a little, curious to see how Harry will react. 

He thinks Harry might laugh, or shrug him off, or move away completely. But he doesn’t. He leans in and kisses Dele’s forehead, soft and gentle and quiet. Dele closes his eyes at the gesture and his entire body goes warm again.  

Harry’s arm finds its way across the back of Dele’s shoulders and Dele snuggles up even closer. He knows this is too far now, knows that if someone were to come outside and see them, some serious questions would be asked. Dele doesn’t think about what those questions would be, doesn’t think about their answers. He just listens to Harry talk about stars. 

It doesn’t matter that he forgets their names. He’s named each and every one after Harry anyway. 


	6. England v. Croatia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this chapter was always going to be a little sad. You knew that, right?! Hopefully we didn't make it too heartbreaking. Please let us know if you liked this chapter!! So sorry that it took so long <3 Hope you guys enjoy it!!

Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to do interviews with the press, nobody wants to listen to Gareth’s speech about how they all tried their hardest and made their country proud, and nobody wants to take off their boots and accept that the game is over.

It’s  _ all  _ over. They’re out of the World Cup.  

Dele just about manages to keep it together on the coach ride back to the hotel. He’s never been very good at compartmentalising, but today is different. Today he  _ has  _ to be good at it otherwise he’s going to shatter into a million pieces.  

So he sits with Harry, as always, but he doesn’t talk to him or even look at him. Instead, he puts his headphones in and stares out of the window and focuses on just not punching something. 

He’s utterly heartbroken, and in a way he has never experienced before. The Euros were tough, but they had hardly been in them long enough to garner any hope of winning. The Euros were embarrassing, but this? This is just painful. Because they were  _ so  _ close. They were on top of the world and England was so proud of them and they just kept  _ winning.  _ Until Croatia, until Perišić and Mandžukić tore them to shreds while the whole world watched.  

_ No _ . He’s not going to think about it. He can’t. He can already feel himself tensing up to the point where he’s struggling to breathe. 

“Dele…” Harry begins. Dele barely hears it over his music, but he sees Harry turn to him, sees Harry’s mouth form his name. He knows Harry will just spit some nonsense about how they gave it their all and how it isn’t anyone’s fault, but he doesn’t want to hear it, so he turns away from Harry, rests his head on the window, and closes his eyes against the screaming in his brain. 

He can still hear the roar of the crowd when Croatia scored. He can still see the disappointment on the faces of the English fans. 

_ They came all that way,  _ he thinks,  _ and for what? To see us fail.  _

Dele knows he’s on the verge of tears again, so he keeps his eyes firmly shut and tries to ignore the visceral ache in his throat and jaw. 

_ Oh, how the mighty fall.  _

\--

As soon as they’re back at the hotel, Dele just wants to go to his room. He doesn’t care about eating or calling his family or checking in on his teammates. He just wants to be alone. 

So he makes a beeline straight for the elevators and waits patiently for the doors to open. 

Behind him, most of the team are still gathered in the lobby, their voices low and sullen. Gareth is talking about everyone eating together, but Dele puts his headphones in and shuts out the conversation. 

“Del, wait.” 

Dele takes out his headphones and turns to the voice. It’s Harry, racing up to him to stop him before he gets in the lift. 

“What?” Dele asks bluntly. He doesn’t mean to be rude, he just doesn’t want to talk. 

“Are you coming to eat?”

“No,” Dele says. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t sugar coat it, doesn’t pretend to be interested in the idea of getting pizza with everyone. 

Harry opens his mouth to say something but can’t quite find the words. Dele notes how tired he looks, how much  _ older  _ he looks. Usually, Harry radiates warmth and happiness, makes Dele feel a little giddy inside, but tonight, Dele doesn’t get that from him. He doesn’t get  _ anything.  _ When he looks at Harry now, he just feels numb.  

But he feels that way about his entire team. When he looks back at them all gathered together, he doesn’t have any urge to be involved. He thinks that, right now, he’d be quite happy to get on a plane and go straight home and not see any of them again for a few months. 

It’s a mixture of anger that they didn’t win and guilt that Dele couldn’t help them.

So, no, Dele doesn’t want to get pizza with them, no matter how sad Harry looks about it.

“Do you want to do something else, then?” Harry asks. He’s trying to cheer Dele up, trying to be a good friend. Dele  _ knows  _ that, and yet still he can’t stop himself getting irritated. Why is Harry being so nice when Dele feels so horrible? 

He doesn’t deserve this. 

“No, sorry,” Dele replies dryly. The lift has arrived and he’s waiting to step inside, but Harry is still holding him up.

“We could just play Fortnite or something?” Harry offers, as if Dele could actually focus on a video game right now. “Or watch Shrek?” 

“Watch Shrek?” Dele repeats, his jaw clenching in anger. He can’t believe they just got knocked out of the World Cup and now here is Harry Kane,  _ the man who should have scored,  _ asking if he wants to watch Shrek. “No, Harry, I don’t.” 

With that, Dele steps into the lift and stabs the buttons until the door closes.

\--

It’s the worst night’s sleep of Dele’s life. He tosses and turns, alternating on a whim between being too hot and too cold. One minute he’s pulling the duvet up to his neck and the next he’s kicking it onto the floor out of frustration. 

He keeps hoping he’ll fall asleep and wake up and it be matchday again. He lies in bed and he wishes and prays to every god he can think of for one more chance. Some sort of loophole that disqualifies Croatia or demands a rematch. Something,  _ anything. _

And at the same time that he’s praying for the clock to go back 24 hours, he keeps thinking of Harry down by the lift, asking if he wants to watch Shrek. 

It hurts every bone in his body to think Harry sees Dele as being  _ that _ childish that he can’t even take a World Cup match seriously. That Harry thinks all Dele needs is a kid’s film and he’ll be smiling again. Like a Pick ‘n Mix and a Dreamworks film is all it takes to right this wrong. 

Even if it came with good intentions, Dele just can’t let it go. At least not for tonight. 

It’s a struggle, but eventually Dele manages to fall asleep. The duvet is tangled around his legs and his fist is balled into the pillow. The dreams come and go. Some are about the match, some are about Harry, and some are about the sea. One way or another, Dele finds himself drowning. He’s drowning in the crowd’s boos, he’s drowning in Harry and Harry’s words and the way Harry looks at him, and then he’s  _ physically  _ drowning.

Which is why he wakes up at 4:35am drenched in sweat and completely out of breath. 

He rubs his face in the darkness and reaches for his phone to check the time. He has an unread message from Harry, sent at 1:05am. 

_ I’m sorry if I annoyed you tonight. Really didn’t mean to. Hope your okay x _

Dele clicks off the message and accidentally drops his phone on the floor. He wants to pick it up, wants to reply to Harry and tell him how sorry he is, wants to ask Harry if he can come to Dele’s room and hold him. 

But sleep pulls him in, makes him heavy, and before he knows it, his eyes are slipping shut again. 

The last thing he remembers is mumbling Harry’s name, hoping somehow Harry will hear him and come to him. 

\--

Training resumes as normal. Gareth sends a mass text in the morning to remind everyone that despite yesterday’s loss and despite spirits being low, they all still have a job to do and they need to start preparing for the third place play-off match. 

Training is to start at 10am in the gym, and it’s compulsory. 

Dele drags himself out of bed and into the shower. He’s exhausted and sad and he wants to stay in his room all day, but he knows it would only be a matter of time before people came knocking. 

In the gym, Harry keeps his distance. Dele looks over at him and tries to catch his attention, but Harry seems intent on staying away and giving Dele some space. They briefly pass each other when filling up their water bottles, but Kyle is with them too, so Dele just shoots Harry what he hopes is an apologetic smile. Harry nods politely at him before walking back to the other side of the room. 

It leaves an ache in the pit of Dele’s stomach, one he can’t quite explain, but one that doesn’t go away all day. 

After training, Dele passes up on lunch with the team. He assures Kyle that he will get food later, and Kyle doesn’t push the subject any further, leaving Dele to sulk off back to his room. 

It takes two hours for Dele to finally build up the courage to go and see Harry. He naps, picks at a couple of snacks from the mini-fridge, and calls his brother, but aside from that, he mostly just lies on the bed and tries to figure out what he wants to say. 

All he has is:  _ I’m sorry.  _

So after two hours of internally debating whether or not Harry will even want to see him, Dele finally just forces himself to go and knock on Harry’s door. 

Harry might not even be in his room. He might be downstairs in the lounge or out with Gareth doing press stuff or-

Harry opens the door, dressed head to toe in his grey England tracksuit. He smiles softly at Dele and gestures for him to come inside.  

Dele lingers by the door for a few seconds, even as Harry closes the door behind them and sits back on his bed. For the first time in a long, long time, he doesn’t know what to say to Harry. He feels awkward. And that in itself is weird enough to make him question if he’s doing the right thing. He fidgets a little until Harry eventually clears his throat.

“You can sit down, Dele,” Harry says quietly, gesturing to the end of the bed. 

Dele nods and only hesitates a second longer before he approaches the other end of the bed and perches on it. He stares down at his hands for a second. He wants to apologise. He wants to tell Harry that he shouldn’t have snapped at him. He wants to tell Harry that he’s so so sorry that he didn’t play better and that they lost. He wants to say sorry for ignoring Harry all day and not eating properly because he knows that would annoy Harry if he knew. He’s just sorry for  _ everything,  _ and he desperately wants Harry to know it. He just doesn’t know how to say it.

“I -”

“Del -”

They both look at each other and stop in their tracks, gesturing for the other to go ahead. Harry ends up winning the battle of politeness, refusing to talk until Dele does. 

“I’m sorry.”

Harry blinks at him, and opens his mouth to reply, but Dele can’t help but try and explain himself, words spilling out of his mouth in a rush.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you and that I didn’t play better and that I didn’t say sorry earlier because we lost and it’s my fault and I’m so sorry and then I was rude to you as well and you’re probably so mad and-”

Harry has been trying to interrupt him the entire time he’s been apologising, with quiet mentions of his name, but at this point his interruption becomes forceful enough that Dele snaps his mouth shut and looks up at Harry with wide eyes. 

He doesn’t want Harry to be mad at him. 

This realisation comes out of nowhere. He knew all this time that he was deeply disappointed about not making it through to the Finals of the World Cup, and quite justifiably so, but he knew in the back of his mind that it was something else as well. He wants to cry at this sudden realisation. He doesn’t know what he will do if Harry is mad at him. If Harry is disappointed in him. If - god forbid - Harry doesn’t want to hang out with him as much anymore. He doesn’t want to think about the possibility of not getting to hang out with Harry almost every day. It would make every day feel like today: awful, draining, depressing. He blinks a little, and is surprised to find himself holding back tears. He doesn’t want Harry to think he’s pathetic. 

“Dele,” Harry says again, in his soft, gentle voice.

Dele breathes deeply and looks back down at his hands, desperately trying to pull himself together. He notices out of the corner of his eye that Harry is shuffling closer to him, and he bites his lip. He’s really worried that he’s going to just burst into tears.

Harry touches his shoulder gently before he carries on talking. 

“It’s not your fault. Not one bit. None of it. I don’t blame you for snapping at me. I didn’t think. I should’ve been more sensitive, I just wanted to act normal with you because I thought it would cheer me up but that was selfish. I should’ve thought about how you were feeling. I’m not mad in the slightest, Dele.”

Dele steals a glance up at Harry and sees Harry picking at the bed sheets, brows furrowed. He wonders if he should say something but he can tell that Harry isn’t finished, so he watches Harry out of the corner of his eye for a little longer and waits.

“If anything,” Harry starts, then he breaks off and laughs. It’s not his normal laugh though. Dele’s never heard a sound like this come out of Harry before. It’s harsh and a little cruel, and Harry’s face pulls into an angry frown before he continues. “If anything, it’s my fault. I’m meant to be the Captain. The star striker. Everyone says I can score anywhere. Just not when it matters, I guess.” 

He looks back up at Harry and he’s horrified to see that Harry is crying. He feels awful. He feels awful that he ever thought that to himself in the first place, when he was so angry and wasn’t thinking straight. He feels even worse that Harry is thinking it himself. Especially because it just isn’t true. They wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far in the World Cup without Harry. And that’s not just for his goal scoring, it’s for the way he handles himself on the pitch, the way he’s always there to help everyone, the way that he keeps everyone in line while still making them feel supported and heard and important - the way he keeps the team together. He thinks to himself that they would barely have gotten past Tunisia without Harry as the Captain. They might not even have qualified to begin with. 

And now Harry is crying because he thinks he wasn’t good enough. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. Harry was everything.  _ Is  _ everything.

Dele doesn’t know what to do. He’s never been good with dealing with emotions, and this is  _ Harry.  _ Harry is sat here crying and Dele is doing absolutely nothing about it.

Harry bows his head and his hand clenches into a fist. Dele’s chest feels tight. He can’t stand seeing Harry like this. He shuffles closer to Harry and does the only thing he can think to do. He leans against Harry, and after a second’s debate, covers Harry’s hand with his own. He hears Harry’s sharp inhale, and silently wills Harry to give in and lace their fingers together. He doesn’t have to wait for long before Harry does exactly that. They sit in silence for a few moments before Dele feels like he has his thoughts collected enough to speak. He wants to ramble about how brilliant Harry is and how integral he was to every single aspect of what made the World Cup so amazing, but he instead keeps it simple. 

“It’s not your fault either, Harry.” 

They sit quietly for a few moments, and Harry starts to rub the back of Dele’s hand with his thumb. Dele feels a little lump in his throat again and he has to take a deep breath to stop himself from crying. He’s not sure why that particular gesture made him feel like this again, but he feels it all the more when Harry finally looks up at him.

“Thanks, Dele,” Harry says quietly, his voice a little choked. His eyes are still glistening. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, then Harry lets go of his hand suddenly and leans in for a hug, wrapping his arms around Dele’s middle. Dele squeezes Harry back tightly and buries his face into the crook of Harry’s neck. He’s certain that Harry will feel the tears that have just started to fall, but he doesn’t mind. He wonders for a second why it is now that he’s finally started crying, but he answers his own question within seconds. He feels safe. He feels safe and comfortable and he’s crying because he’s still so disappointed and sad but he’s with Harry so everything is going to be okay. 

Harry strokes his head and starts to move away. Dele didn’t want to let go so soon so he’s a little disappointed, but Harry merely lies back against the headboard again and gestures for Dele to come back over to him. Dele shuffles across the bed while Harry plays around with the TV remote. He lies right next to Harry while Harry flicks to the news, reaching out his other arm to rest it around Dele’s back. Dele leaves it all of thirty seconds before he rests his head on Harry’s shoulder, content. 

“What do you want to watch?” Harry asks Dele quietly, stroking his shoulder. Dele nuzzles further into Harry, feeling warm where Harry’s fingers are touching his skin. He can feel himself blushing a bit but he ignores it and turns ever so slightly so that he’s more solidly wrapped in Harry’s arm. 

“I dunno,” Dele mumbles, then he pauses for a second, wondering whether he should joke or not. “Normally I’d say Shrek.” 

It pays off. Harry laughs lightly, and slides his hand down Dele’s side, landing on his waist. Dele’s heart begins to race, and he oh so carefully moves closer to Harry, hoping that it’s imperceptible. He wants to wrap his arm around Harry’s middle and cling onto him for dear life, but he knows that would be taking it too far.  _ Right? _

“Maybe not tonight,” Harry says, squeezing Dele’s waist. 

Dele shuts his eyes at the sensation and swallows the lump in his throat. He takes a slow, deep breath, and hopes that Harry can’t hear how shaky it sounds. He looks up at Harry’s face, dimly lit by the television screen, and his gaze falls to Harry’s lips. He wants Harry to kiss him again. He wants it more than anything. Harry looks back down at him, and Dele feels like he was caught doing something wrong. He bites his lip and darts his eyes away, only looking back when he can see that Harry is looking at the TV, flicking through the channels for a minute or so before just going back to the news. 

Slowly, Dele continues on his quest to get closer to Harry, settling into him more and more with every passing minute. He carries on watching Harry. He knows that Harry can definitely feel his eyes on him, but, like their movie night, Harry seems content to just allow Dele to keep watching him. Dele notices how tired Harry looks, and finds a sense of comfort in the thought that Harry might’ve had as much trouble sleeping after they’d fallen out as Dele had. Harry yawns, and Dele feels his lips pull into a fond grin. He can’t help it. He just thinks that Harry looks so cute like that. He decides to just give in to his urge and he finally wraps his arm around Harry’s waist, cuddling up to him properly. 

He feels Harry kiss his forehead and he can’t help the little shiver that runs down his spine. He resolves to not look up at Harry again, to not get stupidly entranced yet again, but then Harry speaks, and Dele’s eyes dart right back up.

“Dele,” Harry says, his voice low and heavy with tiredness, “You’re my best friend. I love you.”

Dele blinks. He feels inexplicably close to tears again. He doesn’t know why. Because all that Harry is telling him is stuff he already knew. He would easily brag to anyone that Harry Kane - famous superstar footballer - is his best friend. He actually probably has done, once or twice. And he knows that Harry loves him. But this feels different. Maybe it’s the way Harry is cuddling him, maybe it’s the fact that they’ve already been so emotional tonight, or maybe it’s the way Harry is looking at him, intense but fond. 

Harry’s eyes dart down to Dele’s lips and Dele suddenly feels short on air. 

“I -” he chokes out. “I love you too.”

Harry smiles. 

“I know.”

With that, Harry leans down and softly kisses his lips. 

Dele doesn’t have time to process what is happening before Harry pulls away again, and he exhales one shaky breath when Harry brushes his thumb over Dele’s cheek and wishes him goodnight. Harry leans away to turn the lamp off, then he shifts Dele off his chest so that he can lie down properly. Dele doesn’t know what to do with himself, but it only takes mere seconds before Harry is coaxing him to lie down, too, and pulling Dele over to him again. 

Dele goes easily, lying down on Harry’s chest and placing his hand over Harry’s heart, but while Harry seems to be relaxing, drifting off to sleep, Dele’s heart is racing and his mind is going a mile a minute. He can’t stop thinking about Harry kissing him. He almost wants to wake Harry up just to see if he would kiss him again. He feels suddenly terrified by how much he wants Harry to just never stop kissing him. He wants Harry to kiss him in bed, in a bar, in training,  _ anywhere _ . He wants to hold Harry’s hand across a dinner table and he wants Harry to take him dancing. He wants to go to the beach with Harry and write their names in the sand, and he wants to finish off every day for the rest of his life by cuddling up to Harry under Harry’s silk sheets.

The pieces are falling into place slowly, but he still can’t fully work out why he’s feeling so terrified, until Harry mumbles Dele’s name in his sleep, and the realisation hits him like a freight train. 

He’s in love with him. He’s in love with his teammate, his captain, the sensible, kind, mild-mannered superstar footballer that he calls his best friend.

_He is in love with_ _Harry Kane._

Fuck. 

\--

The next morning, Dele is rudely awakened by Harry’s alarm clock. He blinks himself awake and reaches for the offending, screaming alarm clock. Why does Harry even need a physical alarm clock? Why can’t he just use his phone like any normal person? 

Dele groans and sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes. 

The bed is empty, and so is Harry’s room. The curtains have been pulled apart a little, letting in a stream of sunlight, and the bathroom door is open with the light still on inside. 

“Harry?” Dele calls out. There’s no reply. 

Dele gets up and pads to the bathroom, but it’s empty. Harry’s towel is still damp on the railing. 

It’s not unusual for Harry to be up early, but it’s only 9am and Dele thought that maybe on this occasion, on the night that they slept in the same bed, Harry would stick around. 

As he walks back over to the bed and gingerly sits down on the edge, Dele tries to work out why Harry might have bolted so quickly.

Then it hits him.  _ They kissed last night.  _

It wasn’t serious and it didn’t last longer than a second, but it was still a kiss, and it was Harry who initiated it. Maybe because he felt sorry for Dele, or sorry for himself. Maybe he was just emotional because of the game and the World Cup. Maybe he just wanted a goodnight kiss and Dele happened to be the only person available. Maybe it meant nothing.

Maybe it meant too much. 

Dele lets his face fall into his hands and exhales slowly. He’s wanted to kiss Harry for as long as he can remember, and now it’s finally happened he’s worried Harry might regret it. Why else would he leave so early without as much as a note or a text?

Reluctantly, Dele leaves Harry’s room and makes his way back to his own so he can get dressed and head down for breakfast. 

The hotel is eerily quiet, with just the rumble of the A/C filling the hallways.

\--

“Where’s Harry?” Dele asks Kyle at the breakfast table. He sits down with his plate of scrambled eggs and looks around the busy cafeteria. It’s bustling with staff and teammates and a few members of the PR team, but Harry is nowhere to be seen. 

“With the gaffer, I think,” John replies, stealing the tomato from Kyle’s plate. Kyle nods around a mouthful of food. 

“Mm,” he agrees. “Doing some press thing, isn’t he?” 

“Yeah,” John says. “Why?” 

Dele shovels scrambled eggs into his mouth and shrugs. “No reason.” 

He finishes up breakfast with Kyle and John and takes his plate away, scraping the leftovers into a bin at the front of the cafeteria. He’s trying not to worry about the situation, tries to tell himself that it was Harry who initiated the kiss, so even if Harry does regret it, he has no reason to be mad at Dele. 

But Dele really,  _ really  _ hopes Harry doesn’t regret it. It makes his stomach sink to even imagine the possibility that Harry regrets it. 

“Morning,” a voice says somewhere to Dele’s right. It’s unmistakably Harry.

Dele turns to see Harry walking towards him. He sets the plate down on the counter and smiles sheepishly, his nerves getting the better of him. Especially because Harry looks nervous, too. 

“Hi,” Dele says, his voice small but warm. Harry stops about half a meter in front of him and Dele tries not to feel too disappointed that Harry hasn’t hugged him. He’s smiling, at least. 

“Media stuff,” Harry explains, gesturing behind himself and into the hotel lobby. “Interviews, press…” 

“Yeah,” Dele says. He nods, polite and calm, like his stomach isn’t doing backflips right now. He just wants to blurt out  _ are we okay? Are you mad? Do you regret kissing me?  _ But he knows this isn’t the time or place. So instead, he says, “How did it go?” 

“Fine, yeah,” Harry answers. He looks like he wants to say something more, but he stops himself. Dele swallows the lump in his throat and shuffles nervously on his feet. “I have to go back, just wanted to come and say hi.” 

Dele grins and lightly shoves Harry’s chest. “Well, go get back to work then. Go be the face of England.” 

“Alright, catch you later, Del.” Harry smiles at him before turning on his heels and walking back towards the lobby. 

Dele watches him go, wonders if Harry has thought about the kiss at all. Wonders if Harry will think about it every minute of the day like Dele will. Wonders if Harry will do it again, and if so, when, and how. 

Just before Harry reaches the doors to the lobby, he turns and finds Dele, shoots him a smile and quick wave. Dele waves back, the butterflies fluttering in his chest again. 

Harry has to go and be the face of England because he’s the mild-mannered superstar footballer that everyone wants to hear from. Despite the team’s loss against Croatia, the world loves Harry Kane. 

_ But nobody will ever love you more than I do,  _ Dele thinks.  _ It’s just not possible.  _


	7. England vs Belgium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're sorry this took so long to get out!!

Meunier’s goal comes out of nowhere, and at four minutes in, it’s enough to make Dele’s heart sink into his stomach. The third-place play off is underway and Dele has been resigned to the bench, squeezed in between Jesse and Marcus. He’s forced to watch Chadli rocket down the pitch and cross to Meunier - who taps it in past Pickford for an easy goal - and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to stop it from happening. 

But England always fight back. Dele tells himself that Harry will score a hattrick and England will come away with a 3-1 victory. Nobody will remember Meunier’s goal and everything will be fine. In the grand scheme of things, coming third at the World Cup is actually something they can be proud of.

The match drags on and still Dele doesn’t get subbed, even though he’s staring daggers into the back of Gareth’s head and internally screaming  _ put me on!  _

He watches Danny Rose fuck up a pass to Harry, and then another. Two big chances lost. Kieran is on fire and he creates more chances than Dele can count, but it’s still not enough. Harry and Sterling simply cannot break through the impeccable defence that Toby, Jan, and Vincent Kompany are putting up. 

_ You know how they play,  _ Dele thinks to himself when he watches Harry dribble the ball towards Jan and Toby.  _ You know you need to separate them. _

It’s strange, watching Toby and Jan go up against Harry like they’ve never met him. It’s difficult watching the tackles that bring Harry crashing to the ground. Dele takes it a little more personally than normal when Jan slides into Harry’s ankle and Harry falls  _ yet again _ , wincing in pain. 

“The Belgian wall,” Jesse comments, nudging Dele lightly in the ribs when Harry fails to break through Jan and Toby’s impenetrable defence. “That’s what they call them, right? Toby and Jan?” 

Dele glances at Jesse and narrows his eyes, not sure if Jesse is being serious or not. “Yeah, I mean... they’re all Belgian, this is the Belgium team.”

Jesse looks confused for a second and then suddenly grins at himself. 

Not only is Dele forced to watch England trail miserably behind Belgium all game, but he’s also now being tortured by Jesse and Marcus, who keep leaning over him to harass each other or to mutter something about the game or to just generally be annoying. After ten minutes of them having a conversation around him, blocking his vision of the game and talking a little too loudly, Dele finally demands that he and Marcus just switch seats. 

At half time, England still haven’t scored and Belgium lead by one goal. 

Dele clambers out of his seat and dashes down to the dressing room, heading straight for the bench where Harry’s boots and clothes and bottles of water await him. 

The dressing room fills up quickly, but before Harry is even in the room, Gareth is talking at them all about new tactics, a new formation, and a totally new approach. Harry rushes into the room and takes a seat next to Dele, smiling at him as he does so. Dele shuffles a little closer but they can’t talk; the room is silent and Gareth is trying to fill them all with a new sense of hope. 

Gareth talks for the full fifteen minutes, and then the whistles go in the tunnel to signal they need to be ready to leave in one minute. Harry swigs water from his bottle and adjusts his boots while Dele hangs around next to him, half in conversation with Eric about Jan and Toby’s unfair tackle on Harry.

“Let’s go!” Gareth calls from the doorway of the dressing room, and immediately everyone begins piling out. Dele still hasn’t said a single word to Harry, so he turns away from Eric and quickly grabs Harry’s arm. 

“Good luck, Haz!” He says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he knows he sounds weird. He never calls Harry ‘Haz’, nobody does. Harry pauses for a moment, clearly as confused as Dele, and Dele is internally screaming at himself to say something else, something  _ normal.  _

He’s about to laugh it off, call him ‘H’ and tell him to go get that hat trick, but the words don’t form in time and then Harry is smiling at him, a little bemused, and he’s walking away and everyone leaves and Dele has to trail after them.

Dele doesn’t know what’s come over him.  _ Haz!?  _ When has he  _ ever  _ used the name Haz? 

“Come on, Del,” Marcus calls out, holding the door open for him. “Let’s go warm up.” 

As the second half gets underway, Dele, Jesse and Marcus are instructed to go warm up on the sidelines. They’re out there for maybe a minute when Jesse and Marcus are suddenly beckoned by Gareth. They’re being subbed on immediately for Rose and Sterling. It’s all part of the new game plan designed to throw Belgium off balance. 

Dele waves them off and continues running laps on the sidelines. He glances across the pitch and finds Eric looking back at him. They share a quick smile before the game goes back into play. 

Harry is there too, a little further forward. Dele watches him, but Harry is too focused on the game to feel Dele’s eyes on him. He makes a few great runs in quick succession, but each is inevitably blocked by Jan and Toby. 

Still, Gareth doesn’t put Dele on the pitch. Dele kicks back in his seat, frustrated, and tries to telepathically pass messages to Harry. It starts out relevant, such as  _ pass to Marcus, he’s unmarked! _ and  _ make a run, make a run, make a run _ , but after a while his thoughts get derailed, and he finds himself staring at Harry and thinking  _ why didn’t you talk to me in the dressing room? Are you mad? Do you regret it? Will you ever kiss me again? _

He’s thinking about the moment Harry kissed him when suddenly Hazard is dancing around the ball in a dangerous area of the pitch. Dele’s focus sharpens and he leans forward, heart picking up pace in his chest.

The ball flies past Maguire, past Stones, past Pickford, and straight into the back of the net. The game is at 82 minutes and England’s chances of a comeback have just been slashed.

“Dele,” Gareth calls up. “Go warm up, you’re going on.” 

Of course, Dele going on makes no difference at all. He tries with every fibre in his body to make useful passes to Harry, to create chances for Marcus, to help Eric out in the midfield. But it crumbles. Belgium are too strong, too dominant. Dele barely has possession and when he does, he loses it quickly. 

There’s a moment in which Dele looks across the pitch and locks his gaze with Harry. Harry is breathless, exhausted. He shrugs a little, defeated, and then looks away. Dele feels his throat tighten as he forces himself to hold back the tears. They’ve failed,  _ again.  _ They’ve failed the fans, they’ve failed the country, and they’ve failed each other. Dele can’t make a difference in this game anymore, he can’t change the outcome. 

It’s over. The World Cup, their time in Russia, all of this. It’s all over.    
  
The final whistle blows and everyone comes to a stop. Somewhere behind him, Dele knows Jan and Toby are celebrating. He doesn’t have it in him to turn and see them though, and instead he looks around for Harry. 

Harry is already looking back at him, combing his hair with his fingers and wiping mud from his knees. He looks tired and frustrated and disappointed, but he still manages to smile reassuringly at Dele. Dele finds himself moving across the pitch, closing the distance.  _ How can you still be smiling? We lost, it’s all over. How can you still be smiling?  _ Dele thinks as Harry walks towards him.  _ I didn’t make enough passes, I didn’t help you out when you needed me. I should have been subbed on sooner. I wanted to help you. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you- _

Dele melts into Harry’s arms in front of all 64,000 people. And even though he’s heartbroken and hurting right now, he feels himself smiling into the crook of Harry’s neck. He wonders if this is what it means to be in love. When everything comes crashing down around you and yet you see that one person and it ignites something, a feeling of hope, a feeling that everything might actually be okay as long as you have  _ them.  _

\--

They leave for the airport that same night. They figure there’s no point hanging around and most of the team are eager to get home to their families and loved ones. 

Dele packs his bag slowly, combing through his clothes and the relics of his time here. He’s finding it hard to accept that it’s all over now, that tonight they’ll fly back home and then... that’s it. England’s time together is up. They’ll all have a short break and then it’s on to a new season of the Premier League. Back to business. 

Harry wanders into Dele’s room while Dele is still busying himself with packing. He lets himself in and perches on the end of Dele’s bed, watching him pack in silence. They don’t say much to each other, but they don’t need to. There’s a comfortable silence that settles in the room instead, one that says  _ we can’t talk right now, but I’m glad you’re here with me _ .

Gareth tries to keep spirits high with another speech in the hotel lobby. All the players and the staff and the coaches, all fifty of them that travelled to Russia together as a family, they crowd around Gareth and listen to him talk about how proud he is of them all, how much they’ve achieved. 

Dele is standing at the back of the crowd next to Harry. He’s too mentally drained to listen to this and he can’t concentrate on anything other than the smell of Harry’s aftershave. He keeps thinking about how long it will be before he smells it again.  _ Three weeks.  _ In theory, it sounds like nothing, but Dele has spent almost  _ every day _ with Harry. The thought of three weeks without him makes his heart hurt in ways he’s only just beginning to understand.

“You’ll stay in touch, right?” Dele whispers, still looking ahead. Harry turns to look at him and then softly knocks his elbow into Dele’s arm. 

“Of course I will,” he replies. 

Dele wants to say something else. He wants to ask  _ will we see each other? Will we meet up? Will things be the same when we get back to Tottenham? Or will we just pretend none of this ever happened?  _ But he can’t find the courage. So instead he just smiles and nods and hopes that a stint in Ibiza will at least help pass the three week break little quicker.

Gareth finishes his speech suddenly everyone is clapping. There’s hugs, lots of them, and they all hug the hotel staff too and thank them for their hospitality. 

The lobby is filled with people and Dele loses Harry in the crowd when he’s pulled away for photos with the reception staff. For a brief moment, Dele catches Harry’s eye through the crowd. Dele is standing by the sofas and Harry is at the reception desk, faking smile after smile with strangers who want to touch him, have a photo with him, and get his signature. Everyone wants to meet the star of England. Everyone wants his time and his attention. 

“Ready?” Eric asks, and Dele spins on his heels to find Eric standing behind him, gesturing towards the exit doors.

“Eric, thank God, let’s get out of here,” Dele says quickly. He looks back to where Harry was just standing but he’s gone now, probably pulled to some other photography blitz. 

Eric ushers them both out of the busy hotel and towards the waiting bus. 

“Did you see where Harry went?” Dele asks as casually as possible. 

“He was standing with you,” Eric answers. 

“Yeah, I lost him in the crowd.” 

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Eric smiles. Dele nods and smiles back at him. 

They walk up to the bus and Eric lifts his suitcase into the holder and then gets on board, not noticing that Dele has frozen on the spot a few meters back. 

Dele stares up at the blue bus and feels the life knocked out of him. It’s the England team bus they’ve had all summer, their World Cup bus. It’s the bus that has taken them to hotels, to airports, to stadiums. It’s the bus that has seen victories, losses, all their highs and lows combined. 

Now they’re going to get on it for the last time so it can see them home.

It happens before he can stop it. The tears fall down his face and he’s holding his head in his hands, feeling the disappointment wash over him all over again. All because of one stupid bus. 

“Dele,” Harry’s voice comes out of nowhere, and when Dele looks up to meet it, he’s quickly wrapped in Harry’s arms, his head being pulled into the cook of Harry’s neck. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Harry soothes. 

Dele winds his arms around Harry’s waist and cries harder. He’s hit with the smell of Harry’s aftershave again and now he can’t stop the tears. He doesn’t want to leave. He loves Russia. He loves the World Cup. He loves Harry. 

He wants to  _ stay.  _

But he can’t, and the rest of the team are filtering out of the hotel now and onto the bus, so Dele has to wipe his eyes, pull himself together, and follow Harry on board.

They sit together somewhere near the back, just behind Maguire and Trippier. 

Dele is still emotional so he doesn’t talk much, just leans his head against the window and bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from crying again. Harry nudges him a few times to ask if he’s okay, but Dele really isn’t in the mood for talking so he just nods and forces a small smile.

It’s an hour long trip to the airport and Dele feels himself falling asleep against the window. Everyone is quiet, listening to music or sleeping, so Dele doesn’t feel too bad about letting his eyes slip shut. 

When something brushes against his hand, he thinks he might be dreaming. He dreams that it’s Harry reaching across his lap to hold his hand. He dreams that Harry laces their fingers together, strokes the back of his hand with his thumb. It makes Dele’s heart race, picturing it as he treads the line of consciousness. It feels so real, too. He can  _ feel _ Harry holding his hand, can feel the pressure points and the areas where their fingers slot together perfectly. 

It feels so real that Dele has to force himself to wake up, to open his eyes and see that it really was just a dream. But when Dele blinks himself awake, he looks down to find that yes, Harry Kane really is holding his hand right now. 

It takes a few seconds for Dele to process that this is actually real, and then he smiles to himself and squeezes Harry’s hand. He doesn’t turn to look at Harry because he can’t work up the courage. Instead, he lets his head fall back against the window, savouring the comforting sensation of Harry’s thumb brushing against his skin. 

_ This is real,  _ he tells himself. 

\--

It feels like forever before they are ready to board the plane, and Dele is getting impatient. He’s still sad that it’s over, but now he’s so tired and irritable that mainly he just wants to get home and get in bed and not have to play football for a few days. A few weeks, even. 

He glances up and sees Harry a few people ahead of him, talking to John and Kyle, and he feels that little tug in his chest that he so often feels when he looks at him. That little tug that he ignored for so long, but now he knows is just a symptom of how pathetically in love he is. As he’s looking at Harry, he thinks about the break again. 

He shakes his head at himself and sighs. 

_ It’s only three weeks,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Don’t be pathetic.  _

They finally start to board the plane, and he sees Harry glance back at him and nod, but just as Dele is about to gesture to the empty pair of seats near the front, Harry is dragged further to the back of the plane by Kyle, who is loudly shouting that John is wrong and he needs to hear it from the Captain’s lips. 

Dele shrugs and sits down in them anyway. He assumes Harry will come back when he’s done with Kyle and John, so he puts his little bag on the seat next to him to subtly discourage anyone else from sitting next to him. He fiddles around for a little while with the screen, looking at the interactive map and zooming in and out on random places in and around Russia, laughing quietly whenever he comes across a name that sounds funny. The city of Oral in particular draws a laugh out of him, and he saves the screen on that bit so that he can show Harry when he comes back. 

Everyone is starting to settle down around him. Maguire already has his sleep mask on, and Tripps is sat next to him, pouring them both a little cup of tea even though Maguire must be mere seconds away from letting out his famous snores. Jesse and Marcus are sat together sharing a pair of headphones, even though they have been bragging about their headphone splitter for the past few days, so Dele is not really sure why they’re still sharing, but whatever. Eric is sat alone, and as Dele glances over he pulls a face at him before he turns back to his screen and starts playing around with it too. Dele turns and looks around, and sees that Harry is now sat with Kyle and John, in the middle of some fierce debate. He watches them until he starts to feel weird about it, and when Harry still doesn’t notice him watching, continuing to chat, Dele starts to feel a little stupid about saving a seat for him. He removes the bag from the chair next to him childishly, dumping it on the floor, and stares at it for a minute or so before he glances back over at Eric and his empty seat. 

He knows Eric prefers to sit alone on the plane, but he also knows that he won’t mind too much if it’s Dele who goes over and sits with him. Because even if Dele can be annoying when he wants to be, Eric’s pretty used to being able to zone Dele out. Eric calls it his special skill, says its what sets him apart from the rest of the Spurs boys who lack the sufficient training in Dele-deafness. 

The seatbelt light blinks above him, and he takes one last look at the back of the plane and sees Harry buckle his seatbelt, and decides that’s it. He’s not sitting on the plane alone. Not for three hours. He tells himself that it’s nothing to do with a misplaced sense of jealousy and childish anger at Harry sitting with someone else, and that it’s purely about not wanting to get bored on the long flight. He gathers his bag from the floor and stalks over to Eric quickly, trying to not make his move too obvious. 

The stewardess sends him a small disapproving glance which he ignores, but apart from that no one looks up. Eric doesn’t even look up at first, even as Dele is moving Eric’s bag from the chair and sitting down next to him. He only looks up when Dele throws Eric’s bag onto Eric’s lap with more force than was necessary.

“Oi,” Eric grunts, “Watch it, Del Boy. Or you can go and sit back over there.” 

Dele shrugs and smiles widely. 

“You’d never do that to me, Diet.” 

Eric grumbles a little bit but doesn’t argue, and begrudgingly orders Dele a Fanta when the stewardess comes over. Dele smiles and he and Eric idly chat for a while, but as soon as there is a lull in conversation, Eric pulls out his phone to listen to music. After that, Dele tries to start a conversation with Eric a few times, but every time Dele starts to talk and nudge him, Eric sighs and pulls out his AirPods with increasingly irritated looks, giving him short answers and putting them right back in as soon as he’s finished answering, pointedly rewinding the song back to the beginning. The third time this happens, Eric actually looks at him and mouths the word “No,” before he turns away and looks out of the window. 

To be fair, Dele isn’t surprised. He knows Eric likes to listen to music on the plane, and he can’t really blame him for being too tired to talk, either, considering that they had to be up so early this morning to get to the airport in time. So he doesn’t blame Eric, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not painfully bored now that Eric is ignoring him. He looks back to where Harry was sat with Kyle and John, and blinks in surprise when he sees John and Kyle sat alone, giggling together at some magazine that Kyle must have brought with him. He glances up and down the plane, craning his head around to see where Harry is sat. He eventually finds him, sat in the seat Dele had previously saved for him. 

Harry looks back up at him immediately, and Dele feels so stupid for switching places. He should’ve known that Harry, ever loyal best friend Harry, would have come back to sit with him as soon as the seatbelt light went back off. That he was just too inherently sensible and rule-abiding that he would’ve buckled up as soon as the flashing light told him to without even giving it a second thought. He should’ve known that Harry wouldn’t choose Kyle and John over Dele. 

Harry smiles at him, and Dele’s lips pull into an answering grin before he even thinks about it. He wants to go over and take his seat back, wants to go and sit next to Harry, but he’s also aware of exactly how embarrassing and pathetic he would look if he so obviously hurried back to Harry as soon as he saw him. Also, it’s been an hour and a half now anyway, so they are almost halfway there. He can last that long without Harry Kane, he’s fairly certain. 

Harry’s still smiling at him, so Dele raises his arm to give him a little wave. Harry laughs and waves back, and they both sit smiling at each other from across the plane for a while until Harry turns back away with a grin and points to the screen in front of him.

Dele looks up just as a message flashes up on his screen.

**_Seat 3A_ ** _ : Safe flight Del. Sorry I missed you at take off. See you when we land x _

Dele smiles to himself, and glances back at Harry to find him smiling over at him again. He takes a few seconds to admire how Harry looks, clad in his grey England tracksuit and smiling over at him so cheerfully, his hair hanging in his eyes and his cheeks a little flushed from how warm the plane is. He turns back to his own screen, still smiling, and types out a message of his own.

**_Seat 3E:_ ** _ thx h u too _

**_Seat 3E:_ ** _ see u soon :) xx _

With that, Dele settles back into his seat with a small, relieved smile. They’re okay. They’re fine. They’re friends. They’re  _ best _ friends, and it’s fine.

And if he spends the remainder of the flight staring at the little ‘x’ Harry sent him and thinking about Harry giving him a real kiss, well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

\--

Getting off the plane is even more emotional than getting on it. 

The second Dele steps outside and is greeted with the familiar airport surroundings, he wants to cry again. He’s home, they all are, but they didn’t quite manage to bring football with them. 

And yet, just inside the terminal, a large gathering of friends and family are waiting for them all, holding up signs against the windows that say “We are so proud of you!” and “Welcome home, England!”

As they walk down the steps of the plane, the photographer ushers them into a group for one final team photo. And then there’s the hugs, the goodbyes, the promises of seeing each other soon. Mostly everyone will be going separate ways for the return of club football, but Dele can at least take some comfort in knowing he shares his club with some of his closest England teammates, too. 

Inside the terminal, Dele is ecstatic to see his family waiting for him with banners bearing his name. They’d come out to Russia too, of course, but he appreciates the sentiment of them collecting him from the airport. 

Around him, the whole team are hugging their families and wives and covering their children in kisses. It’s an emotional scene that makes Dele’s heart ache. He wishes he had someone to be coming home to. 

And then he sees him. Harry, walking towards him, a big grin on his face as he pulls Dele into his arms. 

“We are leaving now,” Harry says, hugging Dele tightly. Dele looks up from where he was resting his head on Harry’s shoulder and sees Harry’s brother, Charlie, waiting a few meters behind them.     

“Have a nice break!” Dele says, holding onto Harry for a few more seconds. He inhales the aftershave one more time and then accepts that it’s finally time to let go and say goodbye. 

“I’ll see you soon, yeah?” Harry replies brightly. Dele nods, but then realises he doesn’t know what that means. How soon is soon? Before training resumes for the new season? This week? Next week?  _ When? _

Before Dele can ask, Harry is waving at him and walking back towards his brother, who is impatiently gesturing towards the exit of the terminal. Dele stands on the spot and waves back, willing Harry not to turn away from him, but he does, eventually, and then he and his brother are through the doors and gone. 

While his family fuss around him, asking if he’s got everything and if he’s ready to leave, Dele takes out his phone and begins typing out a message. He’s vaguely aware of his brother asking him questions, but he blocks it out, focusing instead on his message to Harry.

_ I miss you already. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait!!! I've been off travelling and so it's been quite difficult to get together and get this chapter out but I'm back (We're back!!!) and we really hope this chapter is worth the wait! <3

Dele is bored. He’s just touched down in Ibiza, the sun is shining down on him, Marcus and Jesse are giggling from the front seats of the rental car, music is blasting and he really should be getting geared up for the time of his life, just like Jesse and Marcus are. Yet, here he is, sat quietly in the back, ignoring the other lads so that he can scroll through Harry’s Instagram. It’s Harry’s fault, really, for posting that picture of himself - a picture of him in a shirt, grinning off to the side. Dele tells himself for a second that it’s the tasteful framing and nice lighting that has him staring at the picture for a good five minutes, agonising over whether giving it a like is too obvious. He knows deep down though that it’s just because he thinks Harry looks really, really handsome and he simply can’t take his eyes away.

He clicks off the picture before he leaves some sort of embarrassing comment, and somehow finds himself, twenty minutes later, grinning widely to himself every time he spots a picture that has him in it. This happens more often than he expected, which sort of makes his heart ache and fills it with warmth at the same time. Just as he finds a picture that’s literally just of Dele, clutching his PFA young player of the year award, the caption proudly congratulating him, Jesse turns round in his seat and starts to bother him, asking what he’s doing that’s so interesting. 

Dele shrugs, and just says that he’s on Instagram. He doesn’t know how he would explain that what has him entertained is just looking at pictures of Harry and getting excited whenever he sees this “proof” that Harry likes him enough to post pictures of him, too. He pockets his phone and tries to not think about Harry, tries to get involved in Marcus and Jesse’s conversation about where they should go out tonight. Apparently Danny and Ruben come here all the time and have a table that they always book at Ushuaia, but Jesse is moaning that he’d rather go to Pacha. Dele doesn’t really have a preference, but he sticks up for Jesse anyway, just for the surprised little grin and punch to his shoulder that Jesse gives him when he does.

“Not so bad for a Southerner, you, Dele!” 

They debate idly about North vs. South for a while, before Jesse gets a little too loud and faux-annoyed and Marcus finds the playlist that Jesse made - Dele spots the name  _ DJ-Lingz _ and smirks to himself - and turns the music up pointedly. Jesse is immediately distracted, and starts to bob his head and rap to Migos, even pulling out his phone to shoot an Instagram story of him rapping and posing. He swivels the camera away from himself just enough to catch Dele shaking his head and Marcus laughing before he focuses back on his pout. 

Dele gets a text in the Ibiza group chat from Danny asking them what drinks they want buying, and then a picture of him and Ruben in what he can only describe as fancy pyjamas, pouring sambuca down their throats, and suddenly Dele is a bit more in the party spirit. He’s going to go out and get drunk and have fun with his friends in the sun, and he’s absolutely not going to sit and pine over Harry just because it’s Harry’s birthday tomorrow. Harry’s in London, and he’ll see him in a few days, and Dele’s gift for him should arrive tomorrow and everything’s fine. 

Everything is absolutely fine.

\--

It’s ten minutes to midnight, Dele’s had four shots of tequila and about a litre of vodka, and everything is decidedly not fine. He’s sweating from all the dancing he’s been doing all night, his hair is flat and messy and he’s spilled a drink all down his shirt. He’s also sat alone, and he’s miserable. 

He’s had a great night, sure, but at random points in the night he’s just felt this deep ache in his bones, a deep yearning for something, for someone - for Harry. It doesn’t help when Jesse keeps asking him if it’s Harry’s birthday yet, because Jesse childishly wants to wish him happy birthday before Dele can. Every time Jesse asks, it sends a little pang through Dele’s gut. 

Dele has just spotted two men kissing across the bar when Jesse laughs and jokes about Harry again, and that’s when he finds himself having to walk away and press his face into his palms, squeezing his eyes shut tightly to try and block out the bright lights and pounding bass of the music. He can’t focus on anything, everything is too loud and too bright, and all he wants to do is be back in Russia, be back in Harry’s hotel room, cuddling up to him and leaning in to let Harry peck his lips. He wishes he would have kissed back. He wishes that he hadn’t let Harry pull away, that he’d parted his lips and let Harry lick his way into his mouth. He wishes he’d have clambered on top of Harry and kissed him for hours and hours and just never ever let him go.

He groans and checks his phone again. Five minutes. Five minutes before it’s officially Harry’s birthday and then...what? He stares down at the time flashing up at him and wonders why he’s making such a big deal out of this. Harry probably even isn’t this bothered about his own birthday, yet here Dele is watching the clock tick by agonisingly slowly. 

“Dele!” Jesse throws himself on the little sofa, upside down, and grins up at Dele. He passes Dele a glass of something - Dele isn’t sure what it is, but takes a swig anyway, recoiling at the taste of aniseed - and taps his forehead. “What’s going on up here then? Seems like you’re putting those couple brain cells of yours to a lot of use.” 

Dele shrugs him off and sticks his tongue out at him, trying to be normal, but he can’t help himself from glancing down at his phone again.

_ Three minutes. _

“Oi, is it H’s birthday yet?” Jesse laughs, nudging Dele with his foot, “I’m gonna say it before his boyfriend can!”

“His boyfriend? Who’s his boyfriend?” 

Jesse laughs louder, pulling out his phone. 

“You can’t be as dumb as you look, Dele.” 

Dele just stares at him. He knows that Jesse is probably joking, he knows that if Harry had a boyfriend Dele would most certainly know about it, but it doesn’t stop his drunken heart from starting to race, and his hands begin to tremble. He doesn’t know how to ask Jesse what he means, doesn’t know if he can talk well enough, so he just looks at Jesse a little pleadingly.

“You, you big idiot,” Jesse rolls his eyes. 

_ Oh.  _ Dele swallows, and looks down at his hands. He wants to laugh it off, wants to joke about Jesse and Marcus and how they’re the ones that are boyfriends, but he can’t bring himself to speak. He’s suddenly hit with a wave of emotion. He wants to be Harry’s boyfriend so badly that it hurts. His heart is aching in his chest and he can feel himself physically tense up, fists clenching and his eyes starting to get just a little glassy. No, he thinks, you’re not going to cry. You’re not going to cry in front of Jesse Lingard because he said Harry Kane was your boyfriend. No way. 

He is very close though. Too close. He can feel Jesse’s eyes on him but he doesn’t dare look up, just bites his lip and stares down at his phone screen and watches it tick from 11:59 to 00:00. 

_ Happy Birthday Harry _ .

“I think I’m in love with him,” he confesses, and after that, the words come spilling out of his mouth unbidden. “God, Jess, I really love him. I don’t know why I’m here. I should be with him. I wish I was with him.” 

Jesse stares at him quietly for a second, shifting himself into a proper seated position. He looks at Dele seriously and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Before Jesse can say anything, Dele quietly adds: “I wish I was his boyfriend.” 

“So…” Jesse says quietly. “Are you guys, like -”

Dele shakes his head. Then nods, then shrugs.

“We’re not boyfriends,” he clarifies. “But…”

Dele spends the next ten or fifteen minutes telling Jesse absolutely everything, from how Harry’s proud little smile makes him feel like he can do anything to how it felt when he and Harry had to kiss in Spin the Bottle, and how horribly jealous he was of John Stones, to the way that he and Harry cuddled after Croatia, the way Harry had pressed that chaste little kiss to his lips, and the way they held hands on the bus, making Dele’s heart soar.

“I know it’s stupid,” Dele says eventually, “I know I’ll see him in a couple of weeks, but I miss him. And I’m worried it’s going to be different. It felt like we could’ve - I don’t know - but it felt like we were just close to  _ something,  _ then it all ended and we all split up and...I’m worried that we’ve lost it. That he won’t want it now.” 

_ That he won’t want me.  _

Jesse has been sat listening patiently, looking more serious than Dele has ever seen him, and now that he’s sure Dele has finished he squeezes his shoulder one last time before he responds.

“H definitely feels the same, Dele,” he finally says, and he doesn’t let Dele interrupt him, just puts a finger to his lips and shushes him before he carries on, “We’ve all noticed, you know. How you guys look at each other and how in love with each other you are. We take the piss out of you both all the time, trust.”

Dele laughs a little despite himself. He would never have expected it to be Jesse of all people comforting him over this, but the way he’s comforting him by assuring him that he takes the piss out of him is so in character for Jesse that it’s just about believable.

They both sit quietly for a little while, then Jesse picks up Dele’s phone and hands it to him.

“Tell him happy birthday. I won’t even try and do it first.”

Dele smiles wryly. 

“Thanks,” he says, picking up his phone, then he stops and looks up at Jesse. “Really. Thank you.” 

Jesse shakes his head, grinning and waving him off, never one for emotion. He pats Dele’s head and stands up, brushing himself down.

“Go get him, big man.” 

Dele lets Jesse walk away and stares down at his phone, eventually building up the courage to open iMessage.

_ hey h  _

_ big 25!! your so old lol _

_ happy birthday _

He bites his lip, staring down at the undelivered messages, then sighs and starts typing again.

_ I hope you like your gift _

_ wish i could see u open it _

_ wish u were here _

_ or i was there _

_ sorry i know im drunk i just really miss you _

_ And i love you _

_ I love you harry _

_ happy birthday xxx _

He’s so desperately in love with him. He wants nothing more than for Harry to fly over to Ibiza right now and sweep him up into a big hug and a kiss and tell everyone that Dele is his. He petulantly wonders why Harry hasn’t done it already. He thinks he’s been a little obvious, and now he’s actually told him. He’s told him that he loves him and surely,  _ surely  _ now Harry is going to tell him how much he loves him back. He might even ask him on a date. He opens his browser and idly Googles flights from Heathrow to Ibiza, to see how easy it would be for Harry to fly over tomorrow. He does this for five minutes, trying to take his mind off the fact Harry hasn’t texted back yet. 

_ Why hasn’t he texted me back? _

He bites his lip and stares at the messages that are delivered but not read. It’s still only just after midnight back in England, and Dele had told Harry to wait up for his birthday messages. And Harry had said he would. He’d said it, said to his face that “I’m looking forward to them” with that classic Harry smile, warm and lovely and so inviting. So why hasn’t Harry responded? Dele holds his head in his hands as a deep sense of foreboding fills his gut. Maybe it was too much. He shouldn’t have told Harry he loved him. Now Harry thinks he’s weird and doesn’t know what to say to him.

He looks across the bar and sees the two kissing men from before holding hands and laughing with their friends and he stares at them for a little longer, his heart aching even more. As he watches them, he thinks about how much he wishes that were him and Harry. The taller man looks at the other with a lovesick smile before he spins round and kisses the other on the mouth, and Dele looks down at his phone background, at the picture of him and Harry from the Sweden game, smiling at each other and hugging. 

_ Why,  _ he thinks with a frown as he looks back at the two guys kissing happily. Why can’t that be him? Why can’t that be  _ them? _

He opens his messages with Harry again and mentally pleads with Harry to read them, begs and begs for him to reply. At one point, he even prays, cursing himself for how stupid he’s being. He’s being so pathetic, but he can’t stop himself.  

He’s told Harry that he loves him, and Harry’s ghosting him. 

He’s fallen in love with a boy and he’s pretty sure the boy doesn’t even like him back. 

He eyes the drinks menu and frowns. He’d told himself about an hour ago that he was stopping, that he was going to take it easy and be kind to himself tomorrow. Now, he glances back down at the messages - still unread - and signals for a waiter. 

He orders every single shot on the menu. 

If he can’t have Harry, well. He’s going to have to try his best to forget all about him.

 

\---

 

Dele wakes up to the worst headache of his life. 

Lifting his head from the pillow is like trying to lift concrete, and even though it takes him a full five minutes to sit himself upright, he immediately regrets it and lets himself crash back down to the pillow. 

The room is spinning and he thinks he might still be drunk. Or about to throw up. Or both. 

Jesse comes bounding into his room a few minutes later, swinging the door open without even having the decency to knock. 

“Morning, sunshine!” Jesse shouts far too loudly, skipping over to Dele’s bed. 

Dele pulls the duvet high over his head and groans. 

“Feeling rough?” Jesse asks with his famous northern giggle. He sits down on the edge of Dele’s bed and Dele attempts to push him off by digging his foot into Jesse’s lower back. “I’ve come to help!” Jesse declares, grabbing at Dele’s foot and shoving it away. He brandishes two pills and a bottle of water. “Aspirin. For the head.”

Dele groans again and gingerly lifts the duvet down from his face. He blinks himself fully awake and reaches out to take the painkillers and water. “Cheers,” he mutters. 

Jesse watches him as he throws back the painkillers and swigs from the bottle of water. He can only lift his head a few inches from the pillow, meaning he ends up spilling water all down the side of his face and onto the pillow. He really can’t bring himself to care that much. 

“What happened?” Dele mumbles, setting his head back down and closing his eyes. The room is already beginning to spin again. He has vague memories of being in a club and dancing with Jesse and doing shots… lots of shots. Far too many shots. 

Everything after that is a blur. 

“We danced and I was well good,” Jesse says, smirking. “Got photographed and filmed and that. Proper breaking out the moves, all  _ Saturday Night Fever- _ ”

“Aside from the dancing,” Dele interrupts. 

Jesse shrugs. “You told me you’re in love with H,” he says as an afterthought. 

Dele opens his eyes and stares at the wall in front of him. The memories come flooding back in one big, suffocating wave. The dancing, the shots, texting Harry, not texting Harry, crying to Jesse, telling him everything, then actually texting Harry, his birthday,  _ his birthday.  _

“It’s his birthday,” Dele says dumbly. Then he processes Jesse’s statement again. “I- I told you?” He closes his eyes and tries to remember exactly how much he told Jesse. 

“You told me you kissed him in bed and that he held your hand on the bus. Oh, and that yeah, you’re in love with him, and you wanna be his boyfriend.” Jesse grins stupidly at that last bit and if Dele had any energy at all, he’d definitely shove him for it. 

“I was just…” Dele trails off. He wants to spin some excuse about how he was drunk, how he was just being daft and telling tales. He wants to at least attempt to convince Jesse that he was lying. If not for his own sake and dignity then for Harry’s. But he knows there’s no point. Jesse is staring down at him with a lopsided grin and his eyes all crinkled and it’s clear he knows Dele was being 100% honest. 

“You don’t have to lie,” Jesse says, as if sensing exactly what Dele was about to do. “I know how you feel. And I know how H feels, too.” 

“You don’t,” Dele says, and he can’t stop himself from sounding bitter about it. 

“He loves you too,” Jesse insists. 

Dele sighs and shakes his head a little, even though the pain of it almost knocks him out. “He doesn’t. He didn’t text me back. I told him and he didn’t text me back.”

“You told him what?” 

“I told him I loved him,” Dele mutters. He remembers typing out the message, remembers his stomach doing backflips as he imagined Harry reading it. He couldn’t be any clearer about what he meant.  _ I love you Harry.  _ If Harry didn’t reply, then clearly he didn’t feel the same way. 

And he didn’t. Because Dele had laid everything out on the table and Harry had ignored all of it. And now Dele feels like an idiot. 

“You texted him at 1am, he was probably sleeping,” Jesse says, clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes dramatically. 

“No I text him at midnight. I’m sure he was still up at midnight,” Dele points out. He fumbles around on the floor for his phone but his fingers just find an empty crisp packet and a box of sad, unused condoms. 

“Nah, an hour in front Del,” Jesse says. Dele looks at him and tries to comprehend what he’s saying. He blinks and shakes his head again. “We’re an hour in front. You kept looking at your watch and it was the wrong time.”

_ Oh.  _

Dele vaguely remembers telling Harry to look out for his birthday text at midnight, but apparently he’d never sent one. He’d waiting until 1am because he was looking at his watch and because, well, he’s an idiot.

He finally finds his phone on the floor and picks it up. He’s got a string of unread messages from Harry and his heart begins to race at the little (8) next to his name on the notification screen. With shaky fingers, he opens the chat and scrolls up to read his own messages before he can read Harry’s response. 

Dele sighs and groans loudly. What he thought was  _ hey h, the big 25!! Your so old lol, happy birthday!  _ Is actually  _ hye hh bsi 22 yeie so odllol HAOo bssha!! _

And what he thought was  _ sorry I know I’m drunk I just really miss you, and I love you. I love Harry. Happy birthday!  _ Is actually  _ Srs know am drr drru I rmsiss you lcoe yiy!!! Haar I ovoee yoymharry beirdhat!!! _

The rest is a mess, too. None of it makes any sense at all. There’s maybe one or two words spelled correctly and Dele can barely even decipher it, and he at least knew what he was aiming for. With fear clutching at his heart, Dele scrolls down to read Harry’s response. 

_ Hi del. You have a good night lol?  _

_ Sounds like you did :) _

_ I think there might have been a happy birthday in there somewhere. If so, thank you x  _

_ I’m trying to work out what you said but I can’t get much more than ‘am drunk I miss you’  _

_ If thats the case I want you to know I miss you too. _

_ Even if its not the case, I still miss you. _

_ I just got your delivery!! Dele!! I love it! It made me smile so much! I’m torn between eating the whole thing right now and saving it forever because its making me smile so much. Thank you so much Del. I love it! x _

_ I hope you feel ok today. Miss you x _

Dele clocks the timestamp on the last message. 10:12am. 15 minutes ago. 

There’s a voice somewhere in the background and Dele finally tunes back into it, realising Jesse has been talking to him this entire time and asking about the texts and if Harry responded. Dele shrugs at him and kicks him off the bed again. 

“Leave me alone. Go make me breakfast or something,” he says dismissively. Jesse slaps his leg through the bed sheets but there’s a small smile on his face when he rolls his eyes. 

“I take it he replied then, judging by your big puppy eyes.” 

Dele turns to say something, but Jesse shushes him and grins. 

“I’m going, I’m going!” Jesse says. He blows Dele a kiss before slipping out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him, finally leaving Dele in peace. 

Dele reads the messages again, and then another five times after that. His heart skips every time he reads  _ even if its not the case, I still miss you.  _

If he thought he was lovesick in Russia, it’s nothing compared to how he feels right now. He has one of the worst heachaches of his life, and yet, he’s smiling ear to ear, because Harry  _ misses him _ , and he loves his present, and he wants to keep it forever because it’s making him smile. 

_ Glad u like it :) sorry about the drunken messages last night. I was a bit of a mess lol. Happy bday x _

Dele sends the message and then immediately starts typing out the next.

_ I think there was definetly ‘i miss u’ in there lol. I do miss u.  _

_ I said some other stuff to but it can wait til i get home. Are you having a nice day? x _

The ‘delivered’ turns to ‘read’ and Dele watches his screen with bated breath. Harry types, and then stops, and then types again. 

_ Better now ive heard from you :)  _

Dele doesn’t mean to let the pathetic, lovesick whine escape him, but it does. He buries himself deeper into the bed and pulls the duvet up to his mouth, chewing on the edge anxiously. 

_ Can i see u when I get back? x  _

Dele sends the message and waits for the read receipt, which comes almost instantly. 

_ Yes. Would love that. When are you back? x _

_ Fly back tomorrow. U wanna like go for dinner or something?  _ Dele replies. He feels like it might be too much, might be too date-like, so he quickly adds,  _ you can bring friends if u want. Doesnt have to be just us x _

Harry types for a while and then deletes it. Dele watches his screen flicker between Harry’s three little dots and then nothing at all. And then three dots again. And then, finally, after what feels like an eternity: 

_ Id rather it was just us x _

Dele replies  _ me too  _ in barely three seconds.

_ You want to meet Monday? If u get back tomorrow? X _

_ yeah sounds good. Will text u when im back tomorrow. have a nice birthday H xx _

_ Thanks del. See you monday xx _

Dele types out  _ I love you  _ and then  _ Can I kiss you?  _ And then  _ I told Jesse everything _ and then  _ Do u feel the same? I feel the same.  _

But he doesn’t send any of them, because he thinks these things might be better said to Harry face to face. And in two days, he’s going to have that chance. Over dinner, just the two of them. 

He figures he can wait that long.  __


End file.
